Asleep
by LoveSupreme
Summary: Charles has been in a coma for twelve years, but Erik visits him every day, just waiting and hoping for him to wake up. After more than a decade though, this is starting to look more like a fantasy than a reality, and people are beginning to worry.
1. Logan

Lensherr had shitty paper-thin fucking blinds in his bedroom, and although Logan had been dealing with them for the past couple years, he had been doing so so randomly that he never seemed to fully get used to them. Thus, here he was way too early in the fucking morning, wincing at the sunlight ghosting through. Hadn't the guy ever heard of fucking blackout blinds?

He rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in Lensherr's expensive pillows, huffing as he noticed the stale taste in his mouth.

He hated going down on men in general, and Lensherr in particular since it required so much more of him, but he very much got off on the man...what? Forcing him to? Ignoring completely what he said he wanted, or didn't want. God, that was so fucked up. That was fucked up, wasn't it? The whole relationship was fucked up. _He _was so fucked up. It wasn't Lensherr who'd instigated this whole thing, after all.

So long ago, it was hard for him to remember, especially with his already shoddy memory and the copious amounts of alcohol involved that night. "Go fuck yourself," he'd said, he remembered that part, but not what he'd said it in response to. Remembered the sudden, sobering chill of Lensherr reaching out with that damned power of his and dragging Logan intimidatingly closer by his very bones. It wasn't too far from that to a bedroom, but was that Lensherr's fault? Had the other man had any idea that that would be hot to Logan, or had he really been threatening to kick his ass?

As if to make himself feel worse, he pushed up onto his elbows, glaring down at Lensherr's sleeping face. The man was undeniably handsome, much as Logan would love to deny it. His face was too lined, Logan had long ago decided, scrabbling for flaws. And the lines on his forehead were especially deep-set, so that even in his sleep it appeared as if something were wrong, something worrying. And yet, it gave him a sort of dignified, tragic air that was mysteriously interesting. His mouth was wide and thin-lipped, and even with it closed it appeared as if he had too many teeth, or maybe it just seemed like that because Logan knew that he _did _have too many goddamned teeth. Even his hair, mussed in their violent rampage last night, dark and gingery but shot with silver in places, seemed austere and teeth-grindingly haughty. God, he'd hated the Bronte sisters when he was forced to read them in high school but he sure was living a romantic life pulled straight from their pages.

_How the hell did you get yourself into this? _he sighed to himself. But he asked himself this nearly every time he ended up at Lensherr's place. All the self-loathing involved afterwards didn't keep him away for more than a couple months. What the hell did he get out of this? What was so worth coming back to, over and over again? His brain apparently didn't understand rhetorical questions, and bombarded him with answers right away: no strings, no danger, no emotions, no heartbreak. Logan loved serious relationships, loved the calm affection of it, the investment in another person, loved being in love. But everything he liked about it was exactly what he hated about it: the routine of it, how untrustworthy other people could be, how painful it was for that love to turn to shit. How easy it was for those you loved to hurt you.

He laid down again for another moment, satisfied with his conclusions. Being with Lensherr didn't make him happy, but it didn't make him exactly unhappy. He certainly didn't dislike it enough to stay away; that much was pretty damned clear. Lensherr was safe. He was good in bed. He was easy to be with so long as they didn't speak to each other, at least in the periods where Logan didn't hate himself for being with someone so imperial, so high-and-mighty, so holier-than-thou.

Awake enough to function after all his philosophizing, Logan slipped out of bed, heart stalling in his chest as his bones paused in mid-air, holding him back.

"Wha?" came the grumble from behind him.

"I'm getting up. Let go of me, you idiot."

Lensherr did, releasing him immediately from his mental hold, curling back up in the bed to rest for a few more minutes. Logan had been through this enough times to have the routine mostly down. By time he was done with his shower, Lensherr would be fully awake, going over work, which he'd put aside impatiently, as if Logan had taken too long. Then the angular man would shower while Logan made coffee. The guy didn't eat breakfast as far as Logan could tell, and he didn't approve of Logan doing so either, at least not in his apartment. There was never any morning sex, even back when Logan had used to offer. Sex was something secret, for the dark and night, and if Logan could get any vindication out of this thing it was in the fact that Lensherr was just as disgusted with their situation as he was. Maybe even more so.

* * *

"About goddamn time," the man grumbled bitterly when Logan came dripping from the bathroom.

"Nobody asked you, bastard."

While Lensherr muttered away in the shower, Logan got dressed again in his same clothes from last night. He was never allowed a clean cache. Anything of his left behind after the deed would be thrown out, he knew from experience.

While he was tying his shoes he examined the photograph on the nightstand. He'd seen it plenty of times, it'd been there for years, but was bored enough to see it again. Erik looked young then, just a teenager, and happy, if somewhat self-conscious. As if the photographer didn't particularly like him, didn't approve, wasn't there for him. It was partly hidden in the flurry of activity, the smiling boy in his graduation robes throwing himself into Erik's arms, cap falling and obscuring his eyes but not his beaming rosy smile, hand blurred in its rush to catch his cap but not in his grip on Lensherr's shoulder.

Logan turned away, shaking his head. The two seemed too happy. Logan had learned that too much happiness simply begged for disaster. This was just another example.

A quick readjustment of his jeans and he wandered to the kitchen. Lensherr had a nice coffee maker, as far as Logan could tell, and in a couple of impatient steps the smell of brewing caffeine was roaming through the quiet apartment. While he could get away with it, he grabbed a piece of bread and slathered some butter on it, dropping the knife into the empty sink for the other man to deal with. Lensherr's fridge was as cold and bare as his attitude, and Logan was reminded why they would never work even if either of them wanted it to work: no bacon, no milk, too much bran, too many vegetables. If it weren't for all the take-away boxes overflowing Lensherr's garbage, Logan would think he was a total health nut.

"You're still here," the gaunt man stated when he stepped out of the bedroom, freshly washed and looking very haughty in his expensive dark suit, hair neatly combed. The look made Logan long to be violent with him: fuck up his prissy hair, rip the suit off him, fuck him till he goddamned _sobbed_, show Lensherr that he was _not _actually better than him just because he owned a fucking suit.

"Just waiting for the coffee to finish," he grumbled back.

Lensherr frowned but otherwise didn't balk. Like a bird shitting on his windshield: Logan's continued presence galled but it was just one of those petty annoyances life threw his way. He grabbed the newspaper from outside his door and sat at the breakfast bar to read it, just as if Logan weren't there. Biting the inside of his mouth, Logan scrounged around for a way to force his presence on the man.

"You want it here or to go?" he settled on.

"To go," Lensherr grunted, and returned them to icy silence, made worse by the fact that Logan had put himself out for the man, was offering to fucking do something for him. Pissed, he grabbed the framed photo that sat on the countertop, the same boy as all the other fucking photos in this mausoleum, shining blue eyes no longer hidden, beaming out from the summer scene, picnic and a book at the beach, how idyllic. Was it any wonder Lensherr was so dour when his old life was so sweet?

"You should get rid of these," Logan accused, snapping the photo face-down on the countertop, the noise waking Lensherr's cat on the reading chair nearby.

The other man looked up, but only cursorily, glancing at what Logan had snapped down, recognizing it immediately, eyes moving back to his paper, not dignifying Logan's suggestion with a response.

"I mean, it's been a long time, hasn't it?" He knew it had. It had been a long time way back when Logan had first ever even seen this apartment, and that was nearly two years ago. "He's not coming back."

Lensherr's eyes when he lifted them were a cool, disinterested gray, but Logan could feel the mix of anger and disgust behind them, and smiled, happy to get his own licks in where he could.

"I'm sure the coffee's ready now."

Shut down, as per usual. Lensherr refused to rise to the bait because even a screaming match would count as a discussion. He never let the subject stray too close to Charles. Or anything else. Never wanted to discuss his boyfriend with...what? His mistress? His repeat one-night stand? Logan shook his head and let it go, didn't care anymore, turning to the machine and pouring them each a cup, getting Lensherr his travel mug, adding a splash of cream last. Somehow, making the man coffee seemed like the most fucked up thing he'd done lately.

Logan finished his coffee quickly while Lensherr took a few seconds to get his work bag together and pull on a jacket. By time the man had said goodbye to his cat, Logan was ready to go. They rode the elevator down in silence. Lensherr never let him stay at the apartment after he left, even if it made him late. Logan had no clue if the man was going to be late today, had very little idea of his work-schedule other than that when he did call him,he usually had work the next day. Logan was sure he worked it out that way so he wouldn't have the opportunity to spend a morning _really _together.

On the sidewalk Logan reached a hand out for cab fare and Lensherr was already tugging out his wallet.

His long fingers wavered on the bills though.

"I only have a twenty," the man said in shock.

Logan was a little surprised as well. In all the time they'd been doing this, Lensherr always had exact fare, a crisp ten-dollar bill.

"I'll get you back next time," Logan suggested. Lensherr stared at his wallet, a devastated look on his face, hand paused in mid-air, as if he really didn't want to invest as little as ten dollars on their doing this even one more time.

Gritting his teeth, Logan grabbed the man's wallet and took it himself, shoving the leather back to him and storming away to hail a cab. Lensherr went the other direction to his car. Never once had he even offered Logan a ride. The cat got a kiss goodbye but Logan never got so much as a backwards glance.

Jesus, what the _hell _did he get out of this?


	2. Alex and Sean

The bus let him off along the main road by the hospital and he had to run through the whole parking lot and then he wasn't sure if he was allowed to go through the emergency entrance because he guessed it wasn't really what other people would call an actual emergency so then he had to find someone to ask where the main entrance was and by time he ran there he was like completely out of breath.

_Stop smoking, _he told himself, scanning the lobby for some kind of directory. _This is your sign that you need to stop smoking. 19 years old and a five minute run kicks your ass-are you kidding?_

He pulled his sweatshirt up over his head, tugging his T-shirt back into place, adjusting the strap on his Device.

"Whooo boy, you just get in from a marathon?!" some big security guard balked at him as he mopped his brow at the wide CHECK IN desk. He mostly ignored him. He didn't like cops. Even hospital cops.

"Whatever," he muttered, too quietly to be heard hopefully, focusing on the petite receptionist. She was a tiny little thing with bleached blond hair cut into an austere, angular bob that was offset by her naturally round little cherub face.

"Hey, um I need to check and see if someone's out of surgery? Or...what room they're in? Um, do I do that here?"

"Do you know the patient's name?" Her voice was a bright little chirping thing, like a baby bird.

"Sean Caleb Cassidy."

"And do you know the reason for his visit?"

He coughed uncomfortably. The cop was still fucking staring at him, grinning dumbly, like waiting for the punchline. "Um, like throat surgery. For, um, polyps. Vocal chord polyps."

"Got it," the woman smiled, typing things into the computer with her little delicate fingers.

"Are you family?"

He could feel a hot flush overwhelm his throat, making him sweat yet again.

"Well, no..." The woman's face seemed to fall an inch, take a step back. "But-he doesn't have any family! Please, I'm his boyfriend. Please, I told him I'd be there when he got out of surgery. You can check! I'm-I'm his emergency contact and everything!"

"Don't worry, honey," the woman chirped. "This is the twenty-first century. We're not going to ban you from the building. If you're on the admittance paperwork then you're all good. Now, do you have your ID?"

He sighed with relief. Right. They would let him in. Sean had told them to let him in. They weren't going to push him away just because he wasn't a blood relative or something. He quickly yanked his wallet out of his jeans, fumbling for his driver's licence.

"Alexander Hemingway Summers?"

Alex blushed even harder, ducking his head from the receptionist's curious gaze.

"My mom's an English teacher," he muttered.

The woman didn't comment further, just pulled out a chip reader and placed it on the counter. No surprise: his ID clearly blared he was mutant.

"Scan your chip, please."

Alex did so quickly, writhing with impatience, struggling to hold his wrist still between the two silver prongs. What if Sean woke up while he was putzing around with fucking chip readers? It was times like this that he wished he were regular old human and didn't need access points or access bands or safety precautions. Why did he have to be treated as inherently dangerous just because he could blow things up with a well-places plasma ring?

"Thank you," the woman hummed and Alex put his arm down.

"You're wearing your Device?"

"Yes ma'am."

The woman took the scanner off its stand and stood up and Alex saw with shock that her lower half wasn't humanoid at all but rather sort of squid-like. He pretended not to notice and pulled up his shirt to reveal the barcode on his Device, the copper disc that funnelled his powers into something safe rather than destructively wild, for her to scan.

"All right," she allowed as her computer apparently beeped approbation. Alex noticed her cheeks were a little pink now. The burly man was watching him carefully, as if trying to gauge his reaction-to her mutation? To his own? "Mr. Cassidy is just getting out of surgery, but...hmm...we'll have to find you a place to visit him outside of the surgery wing."

Alex must have looked confused because she smiled gently and explained, glancing as his chest-plate, "Lots of flammable gasses, you understand. I'll get him moved to the fifth floor instead. Just take a seat in the waiting room here and I'll send you up when they get him into a room."

Alex had been riding the bus for the last half an hour thinking he was going to be too late and Sean was going to wake up without him. He'd sprinted across the parking lot for the same reason. He'd been in impatient agony through this whole check-in process. To discover that he actually had time to spare took a minute to wrap his head around, and it took even longer to manage to follow the receptionist's advice and go sit down in the waiting area.

He hadn't even thought to bring his homework or anything, he'd come straight from his cashier gig at the sports store by the university. Scrounging around, he picked out a couple informational pamphlets to hold him over.

_Mutation and You! _exclaimed one. _Tobacco Use & Asthma _said the other. He didn't have asthma but that didn't mean the information wouldn't be useful. He really did need to quit. He didn't need to smoke weed _and _tobacco, it was like a total double whammy.

He read his two pamphlets, and then _Ticks and Your Health _before the receptions chirped a soft, "Mr. Summers" and waved him over.

"Alright, we've got a room for him. Extend your wrist, please." He did so and the woman wrapped a bracelet snugly around it. "Just get on the elevator there, it's on the fifth floor. Room number 557."

"Thanks," he grinned, and ran off to where she'd directed.

Alex couldn't say that he was the biggest fan of hospitals. It wasn't anything traumatic: he'd never watched his grandparents die in a hospital, he'd never been forced to stay the night there as a young impressionable kid, nothing awful had ever happened to him in a hospital. But he'd watched enough horror movies to find them creepy, the blank white walls, the shiny pale floors, the antiseptic reek-he was not a fan.

"Um, I'm going to room 557, is that okay?" Alex questioned awkwardly at the nurses' station. He felt like he'd get in trouble if he didn't check in before running past even though his bracelet had allowed him past the entrance without erupting the hospital into warning alarms. Mutant on the loose! Run for your lives!

There were two nurses there, a young Hispanic-looking lady and an older woman with wrinkles, cotton-ball hair dyed a kool-aid red. They both stared at him for a long moment before sharing a rather aggravated glare.

"Straight ahead, on the right," the younger woman grumbled.

"Be respectful!" the older woman demanded, so angrily that Alex actually jumped a little. He walked on quickly, straight ahead and to the right. Be respectful of what? Did they think he was going to go down on his boyfriend in the middle of a hospital or something? How did they even know he was Sean's boyfriend?

There was a little window in the heavy room door but Alex hadn't been expecting another person and so hadn't even glanced through it, leaving him unprepared when the man inside stopped reading mid-sentence, staring up at him with pale, wide eyes. He was dressed in a pressed, pale suit, was old-forty maybe, with dark red-brown hair streaked with gray. There was another old guy lying in the hospital bed the man was seated next to, pale with very dark brown hair, but Alex was a bit surprised to see he was only hooked up to an IV, not oxygen. In the movies everyone had oxygen tubes.

It was pretty obvious that Alex and Sean were encroaching: the tall man was seated right up between the bed and the wall and the nurses had obviously put Sean's bed as close to the other man's as they could get, allowing for IVs and monitors. It was still super cramped.

"Sorry," Alex muttered, and tried to distract himself from the awkwardness with his own concerns, beaming a bit to see Sean, bright orange-red hair a shock against the white pillows, still sleeping. He had to sort of climb over the chair to get to him, to press his hand to his boyfriend's brow, but Sean was really under and didn't even respond to it or anything. He guessed he needed his rest-Alex didn't want to shake him awake or anything like he normally would. Instead he sat down to wait, resting a little easier now that he could see he hadn't arrived too late.

With his anxiety abated, it left room for his sense of weirdness to take the upper hand: the other guy hadn't gone back to reading, and Alex got the feeling he was being watched, or maybe that was his general paranoia.

He glanced over and although the guy wasn't looking at him just then Alex couldn't help but feel like he just had been. The guy seemed just as embarrassed by his presence, adjusting a thin blue quilt that covered the patient's shins, fixing his gray cardigan cuffs on top of the blanket. Alex took the chance to take it all in: the book lying on the sleeping man's thigh (_Captain Corelli's Mandolin_, he could tell by the cover), then up to the sleeping man himself, cardigan over his checkered hospital gown, face so pale it was almost white-blue, hair dark and shaggy, yet neatly combed. There were a bunch of sunflowers on his nightstand, and some framed photographs. Damn, he totally should have thought of that. At least the flowers bit-they'd been selling them in the gift shop if he'd thought of it. Too late now.

Alex looked away, glancing at the other man, worried he'd been caught staring and almost convinced he had. He realized the TV bolted high up on the wall was turned off, and was leaving an eerie, awkward silence that only got worse the longer the old guy went without saying anything. The silence was unnerving, was way too similar to being in jail, and Alex was forced after only a few minutes of Sean still not waking up into speaking.

"Sorry we put you out like this. I guess they had to kind of scrounge around for a room for us."

"Oh..." the man coughed uncomfortably, looking at Sean. "That's alright."

"I've got kind of a...volatile mutation so I guess they didn't want me around like...I don't know...an oxygen cache or something."

Somehow this scary information seemed to relax the man and he resettled himself in his seat, straightening the lines of his slacks.

"Ha. I know what you mean. I've got electro-magnetism and it also gets some people antsy, keeping me around so many vital instruments."

"Oh, you're mutant too?"

"We both are," the man explained, hand encompassing the pale man as well.

"Us too! Wow, what are the chances, huh?"

"Pretty good," the man chuckled, giving a tenuous smile, as if he weren't used to the act. "This is a predominantly mutant hospital."

"Oh," Alex blushed. "I didn't know that."

The man didn't try to make him feel worse about it, the way some know-it-alls did. "I'm Erik," he said instead, rising up to shake his hand. "This is Charles."

"Nice to meet you guys. I'm Alex and this sleepy sod is my boyfriend Sean."

"Pleasure," Erik grinned. "So, what are you guys in for?"

The words had a familiar ring and Alex shifted uncomfortably. The thing about juvie was once you got out it felt like everyone knew you'd gone in, and was judging you by it. It took conscious effort to remember that that wasn't the case, that Erik was asking politely, not meaning anything deeper by it.

"Throat surgery. His mutation is really...loud...and it puts a lot of strain on his vocal chords. What about you guys?"

Erik's smile faltered and he turned to look at the brunet, at Charles, with a distant, sort of pained expression.

"Oh...car accident."

The uncomfortable way he said it made it seem like a touchy subject, and Alex worried he'd stumbled into something outside of his social capabilities. Was the guy dying? He _was _really pale, but otherwise he didn't see anything wrong with him: no cuts, no bruises, no broken bones-but that didn't mean he wasn't on death's door. Jeeze, maybe that's why the nurse had told him to be respectful, and here he was forcing his conversation on the guy.

"Sorry. I babble when it's quiet. Just tell me if you want me to shut the hell up."

Erik smiled again, pushing any awkwardness away.

"No. Honestly, it's nice to hear something besides my own voice."

"He's been asleep for a while, huh?" Alex laughed, and immediately regretted it as Erik seemed to almost grimace.

"A while. Yes," he said softly.

_Total fucking fuck up! _Alex upbraided himself. _What is coming out if your mouth?_

"I'm sure he'll wake up soon," he suggested cheerily, rewarded when Erik smiled back.

"Me too."

* * *

"Check," Erik grinned, moving the tower looking piece on the iPad chessboard.

"Shit!" Alex yelped. How had he let that happen? Sean's legs jostled underneath him as the man silently chuckled. He wasn't allowed to make a noise for a few days, so said the doctor that had come in earlier, or smoke, _anything-_it was going to be an interesting couple of days. You'd think that someone that was going to rely on his good nature so much in the next few days would try to engender some good will rather than laugh at him like that. He glared at his boyfriend but Sean just smiled widely back at him. He frowned over the board, rubbing his chin.

"Can I move this?" he questioned, pointing out the tallest one. Biggest meant best, right? How had he forgotten everything Erik had told him before they started?

"You can move whatever you want," Erik shrugged, grinning at him with a full splay of teeth from his seat on Charles' bed.

With a sense of relief he moved it, keeping an eye on Erik's stony visage which didn't change until he set his piece down purposefully. As soon as his finger was off it, the man grinned even more widely, taking an apparently important piece in one swoop.

"Check mate!"

"Aw man!" Alex moaned, dropping his head back. He punched Sean lightly in the ribs as the man silently laughed his head off. "Shut up! I'd like to see you try! Chess is fucking hard..."

"You just need to practice," Erik chuckled, putting the iPad on the foot of the bed. Alex reached for it petulantly.

"Come on, one more game! I'm getting the hang of it."

But Erik shook his head, climbing long-legged over the ends of the beds to get back to regular flooring, stretching his spine out from its hunched position. Sean obviously checked him out as he bent over to put his iPad back in his back and Alex hit him a little bit harder. Still Sean just chuckled and caught his hand, winking at him as he kissed his knuckles. Total fucking lush.

"Sorry, I've got to get out of here-visitation hours end soon. You guys have a safe drive home."

"C'mon, what'll they do, call the police? So you're a little late leaving," Alex pursuaded, shrugging, and motioned to the splay of expensive hospital food spanning Sean's hospital table. "We'll bribe you with food. You're too skinny."

Erik just made a face and jerked on his suit jacket.

"I'll pass. I've had enough hospital food to last me a lifetime."

Sean and Alex shared an excited glance. Charles had yet to move an inch, to wake in the slightest the whole time they'd been there, even with Erik climbing on his bed. The suspense was killing them, and Sean, if he could talk, would have blurted something out already, but Alex was more subversive. He didn't need Erik to figure out what was up with Charles. There were less awkward ways to get that information.

So although Sean prodded him with begging eyes to ask, he withstood, not saying anything as Erik moved with difficulty to the top of Charles' bed.

They both turned away, pretending not to watch from the corners of their eyes, as Erik leaned down, cradling Charles' head with his long hand as he pressed their foreheads together for a few quiet seconds. Before he pulled away he kissed the pale man gently on the corner of his mouth, and then moved away, unable to hide his blush as he glanced back at Alex and Sean, still pretending to be absorbed in Sean's food.

"Well, um, I guess I'll see you guys around!" Erik chuckled awkwardly, waving like a Wal-mart greeter.

Sean made an intense sad face, running a finger down his cheek as a tear track.

"I wish you didn't have to go," Alex complained. "How am I ever supposed to get good at chess now?"

Sean hit in him the arm, pointing at himself demonstratively.

"Yeah right! You don't know how to play chess!"

Sean threw his arms out, incredulous look on his face, like Alex was egregiously underestimating him. He could learn-it wasn't completely fucking beyond him.

"You two should learn together," Erik agreed, nodding contentedly. "Chess is the food of love."

"Maybe for you guys," Alex joked, rolling his eyes, motioning between Erik and Charles. Sean gave him moony eyes, batting his lashes, making a little heart with his hands. Alex knocked his hands away.

"Give it a shot," Erik suggested, winking, and waved goodbye again.

"Bye! It was great meeting you!"

Sean waved manically. As soon as Erik was out the door he pushed Alex off him, pointing hysterically at Charles. Alex moved a little slower, making sure Erik was really gone before he went and grabbed Charles' chart from the foot of his bed. God, this medical stuff was really confusing.

"Well, he doesn't have a fever," he joked. Sean glared at him wrathfully and he flipped back page after page-there were so many fucking pages to this thing.

"Xavier, Charles Francis...hm...okay, this one looks really old...broken ribs, fractured pelvis-jeeze-some car accident. Huh, he doesn't look that banged u-."

He stared in shock, for so long that Sean thought it would be a good idea to throw a french fry at his head-but at least it did knock him back to the present.

"Sean!" he gasped. "This was...he was admitted _eleven fucking years ago_!"


	3. Darwin

Darwin didn't even know he was asleep until a tinny crash jolted him back awake, finding himself grabbing his steering wheel in panic until he could steady himself. The crashing continued and he swiveled around, leaned forward in his seat and glared through his windshield. It was dark and chilly out there, so that Darwin felt a mental shiver even with his heater humming along. Just outside the glare of the streetlight he could make out some guy stumbling away from some toppled trashcans, nearly tripping over his own feet, obviously drunk, knocking into a guy smoking with his friends and getting shoved away, barely keeping himself upright.

Darwin quickly made sure his taxi light was on and started the car. This had all the signs of what he waited outside bars at night for: an easy fare.

Sure enough, the guy turned at the sound of his engine starting, holding his hand up against the beam of his headlights. He was tall, Darwin saw, and dressed nicely in a long wool coat and gray suit. He wavered on his long coltish legs and Darwin was momentarily worried that the guy was drunk to the point where he'd make a mess Darwin would hate cleaning up. The trick was to get them drunk but not _too _drunk.

There was a blast of cold air as the man figured out how to work the door and fell through, trying at least two times before he managed to sit up and close it behind him, leaning across the console and making Darwin wish he had a divider.

"Brin me t'th ahspital," the man demanded, and leaned forward even further, halfway into the front of the cab and adding. Pointing to his cab licence he added, "Ar-man-do Munnnnnnyoz."

"The hospital?" he balked, turning in his seat. He didn't look injured as far as Armando could tell. "Is it an emergency?"

"Is an-is an emoshanle emergen-ency," the man nodded, sitting back but resting his head on the shoulder of the passenger seat. In the light of the cab his eyes were eerily lit a pale blue-green-gray. "Okay, Ar-man-do?"

Armando grinned curiously back, brows furrowed. He wasn't bleeding. Nothing seemed to be broken. There was no reason to give his fare away to an EMT. He turned off the overhead light and started the meter, pulling out onto the empty street.

"Which hospital?"

"Saint Rita's. Rita's. You know-you know what she's sain' of?"

"What?" Darwin asked, jumping when the man slid across the leather seat on a turn and banged into the opposite door.

"Immmpossible Cases," the man said grandly, climbing back to the center of the seat and sweeping his arms expressively, falling over again. He righted himself clumsily and mumbled, "How you like that, Ar-man, um, Arm-how you like that?"

"Sounds morbid. Put on your seatbelt and I'll let you call me Darwin," he chuckled. He stopped, stomach clenching coldly as the man sat back, holding his hand out, and the buckle moved on its own accord, moving across his torso and buckling itself.

"You're a mutant," he let slip in shock, although he knew it wasn't exactly polite conversation.

"So're you," the man grinned back, and strained again his belt, pointing at Darwin's licence. "See? MU-71208. Reg-is-tered. D'you know what?"

Before Darwin could respond, the man was already talking again, scooting closer to Darwin's seat, hand catching on his shoulder as it went to grab his chair back.

"Today is? D'you know what today is?"

"Thursday?"

"Myyyy birthday. Yup. Today is myyy birthday."

"Happy birthday," Darwin smiled into the mirror. The man smiled back and patted him happily on the shoulder. Weird as drunks got, it never paid to be rude. They were always very generous with the tip so long as you kept them happy, Darwin had learned a long time ago.

"Thanks. Thank you, Ar-man-Darwin, that's right, Darwin. You know-you know how old I am?"

"Um, I don't know. Forty?" It seemed like a solid middle of the road number and even though the guy looked a little past middle of the road, Darwin decided to be nice and guess low.

"_That's right!_" the man suddenly shouted, making him jump. "Thass right, Darwin. Forty. Firs day of forty. Firs day of th'ress a-my life. Tha _ress _a-my life."

He sat back, silent, and Darwin looked back nervously-the guy seemed suddenly depressed, face drawn and anguished under the flashing streetlights. When he surged back up, one arm wrapped around the passenger's headrest, he was wiping away tears. Sad drunk.

"Take me t'the hospital, Darwin, okay? Take me t'the hospital."

"I am, mister."

"Erik."

"Erik. St. Rita's Hospital, we'll be there soon."

"Thank you, Darwin. Thank you a lot. This means a lot ta me."

Darwin grinned, shaking his head.

"Sure, no problem."

* * *

"This is a big problem!" Darwin hissed quickly, bracing himself under Erik's weight as the man stumbled over a step. Even his quietest whispers seemed to echo in the concrete stairwell, as well as Erik's clumsiness. "We are not supposed to be doing this! You're like-breaking into the hospital! _We're _breaking into the hospital! How did you talk me into this?"

"I showed you th'inside a my wallet, rememmer?"

Darwin did remember, and it had seemed like a lot of money at the time but now that Erik was using his powers to get around hospital security it seemed like he was being jipped. He wasn't going to need rent money in jail, after all.

"We're going to get caught! Do you hear me you drunk idiot?"

"Shh!" Erik hissed suddenly, clamping his hand over Darwin's mouth. Darwin shoved it off immediately, stalling as the man dug his heels in on the landing. "This's it."

His heart was pounding in his chest and he was sweating even under his thin leather jacket, causing his mutation to take over, dilating his blood vessels and thinning his skin. He was going to get arrested all because of this rich lush.

Very quietly Erik held out his hand, the joints and tendons standing out clearly on the thin appendage. The door immediately swung open, lock or no lock and Erik lead them forward. Darwin held them back as long as he could, which was only long enough to peek around the taller man. The hallway was brightly lit but empty, all the way to the end of the corridor on the other side. Still, Darwin could hear someone typing loudly at a computer in the lobby that separated the two corridors.

Erik tugged him forward, wide silent steps like something out of a cartoon but Darwin was too terrified of getting caught to dare laughing over it. Another sweep of his hand and room 557's door moved silently open, locking in place. It was hard to see in here at first, with the light off, but Darwin adapted to the dark quickly and in a moment could see as well as in sunlight.

Sleeping quietly was a sickly-looking man, pale and emaciated, with long brown hair. Erik pulled away from him and propped himself on the foot of the bed, obviously not afraid of waking the guy as he gripped him hard by the legs under the heavy quilt covering him. Darwin pulled him back by the shoulder cautiously: he didn't want to get caught because Erik couldn't contain himself at the last moment.

"Shh!" he warned, but the man fell out from under his hands. Apparently uninterested in subterfuge now, the man collapsed across the other man's legs, hands digging in roughly. His face broke out any semblance of control, twisting in pain, and Erik was crying.

"Charles, Charles!" he moaned low, shaking. Darwin jumped at the sound-it wasn't exactly loud but compared to the silence of the room it was practically deafening. It seemed impossible that the typist down the hall hadn't heard it, hadn't called security, wasn't on the way down right then and there. He lunged to shut the door, cringing when it clanged shut too loudly, then lunged back yanking on Erik's shoulder more insistently, struggling to get him off the other man before he woke him up and got the whole hospital called down on them.

"Erik, shut up! Knock it off before he wakes up!"

"Wakes up!" Erik repeated, keening loudly. Darwin grabbed him by the head, clamping a heavy hand over his mouth. Erik shook him off more easily than he would have thought but he didn't even have time for another try as the man followed him up, shouting now, grappling for his lapels but slipping off.

"That's all I want him to do is wake up! Is that too much to ask?" he yelled, grabbing the end of the bed and shaking it violently, the whole bed jumped and rattled although he surely didn't have the strength to do that manually. Darwin fell back against the wall in shock, the man in the bed like a lifeless doll in an earthquake.

"Stop it!" he yelped, struggling to make himself heard over the ruckus of the bed. Gritting his teeth, he made himself strong enough to yank the man away, pinning him against the wall. "I did what I said! I helped you up here. If you want to get arrested that's up to you-just pay me so I can get out of here. "

But instead of taking out his wallet, Erik just melted in his arms, collapsing in dismay, sobbing even harder now. Sad drunk, for absolute fucking sure.

"Is this how I deserve to be fucking treated?" he sobbed, allowing Darwin to drop him to the floor. "Was I really bad enough to deserve all this?"

"Shh, shh," Darwin tried to quiet him, petting his hair awkwardly. God, he hadn't had to deal with shit like this since he'd moved away from his baby brothers and sisters. "I didn't mean to be short with you-I'm sorry." Erik ducked away from the awkward soothing, kicking out at the bed violently and although he didn't connect with it the thing slammed against the wall anyway.

"That's not fair!" the man shouted, shoved himself backwards in an attempt to stand out of Darwin's grasp, banging his head against the wall. Darwin released him immediately, feeling like he was making it worse. Actually though, the guy didn't seem to even realize that Darwin was still there. Maybe the guy hadn't been talking to him in the first place.

Either way, looking down at the shivering, crying man, Darwin realized it didn't matter. Time to cut his losses. The guy had had a hard enough night without Darwin cleaning out his wallet as well. He'd count this as karma paying the man back a little bit. Hopefully he'd get his own back in due time.

Apparently that was too much to ask from fate.

As soon as he turned to the door it sprang open and someone shoved the lights on, momentarily blinding him. As he staggered back he tripped over the crying man but managed to catch himself on the window sill.

"Mr. Lensherr?!" the intruder gasped, and Darwin, rubbing his eyes, saw a young Hispanic-looking girl, dressed in pale lavender scrubs, her hair pulled back severely. Still, for all the terror and authority she wielded, Darwin couldn't help but think she was rather pretty. She looked even prettier with the sweet, pitying gaze she gave Erik when she saw his state. "Oh, Mr. Lensherr, not again!"

Erik didn't say anything, folded up miserably on the floor, crying into his knees.

Without his input she turned to Darwin, glaring wrathfully, arms crossed with vengeance.

"Who the hell are you?"

He flushed painfully and tried to choke out an answer, barely capable of it past his fear.

"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!" he gasped, shaking slightly. "Please, I don't want any trouble!"

"Then you shouldn't have come up here, huh?" she growled, stalking forward, but she was thwarted by Erik grabbing her legs, pitching her against the bed until she managed to right herself.

"Angel, tell 'im-tell 'im is not fair-he'll lissen ta you!"

The girl stared at him, face glowing beautifully with pitiful affection, and struggled to get him into a stand.

"Oh, Mr. Lensherr-you've got to stop doing this to yourself!"

But Erik apparently couldn't hear her, sobbing painfully, completely useless in her hands. Sighing with exertion, she glared at Armando.

"Well, are you going to help me or what?"

Hopeful that another push of good Samaritan-ship would get him back out of trouble, Darwin steeled himself and lifted the man easily in his arms. Erik was too exhausted to balk and allowed himself to be grabbed up easily. The girl stared at him in wide-eyed surprise for a moment and then turned away, blushing slightly.

"Come on, follow me. He can sleep it off in the crash room."

Darwin followed eagerly, but allowed himself a backward's glance. The man in the bed hadn't budged an inch, even after all that commotion.

'Angel' led him behind the nursing station to a little cot made up with a thin pillow and some hospital blankets.

"Just set him down here," she hissed quietly. "Let him sleep it off."

"I'm so sorry about this," he whispered back. "I had no idea he'd go off like that. He seemed like such a quiet guy."

"What are you?" the girl frowned back at him, but the wrath was out of it, leaving only a sense of disdain. "Some kind of new date?"

"Me?" Darwin balked. "No! God-I'm just a cabby. I picked him up by a bar and he said he wanted to go to a hospital, but I swear-I didn't know he wanted to break in or anything!"

Angel's face relaxed out of the tight anger, softening her features, and Darwin realized she was actually _very _pretty, when she wasn't making him fear for her life. She pulled the blankets up tenderly around Erik's shoulders, caressing his hair back off his wide brow.

"Angel," the man groaned, taking her hand weakly. He seemed too put upon to say anything else, was either finally blacking out or was just exhausted enough to sleep now. The girl rubbed his back soothingly until he closed his eyes and then she pulled her hand gently away.

Darwin found his chest felt tight and only when Angel turned to him did he realize he'd been staring.

"Sorry," he murmured, ducking away from her knowing gaze.

She didn't reply but took him by the elbow and stood him up, walking him out back into the lobby, shutting the door quietly behind her.

"Don't worry about it," she muttered, pushing a piece of flyaway hair back from her temple. He hair was very dark, slightly curly. She was wearing soft purple eye shadow and Darwin thought that was damned cute. He knew he should get back to his cab, had to have something to show for tonight, but knowing this did not equate to doing anything about it. He leaned against the counter, smiling dumbly.

"That was pretty crazy," he chuckled as the girl sat back down in front of the computer, leaving him standing awkwardly at the counter.

"You get used to it," she muttered. Then she seemed to soften to his predicament and smiled up at him appeasingly. "This isn't the first time he's pulled this stunt. You're off the hook: if he hadn't pulled you into this it would have been someone else." Her gaze turned sweet, resting her chin in her palm in a way Darwin hoped was meant to be alluring because that sure was the result. "Thank you. For not taking advantage of the situation, I mean."

"Oh, yeah, no problem," Darwin waved her off, blushing. She wasn't coming on to him, she was just being nice out of gratitude for some guy she apparently knew. Which made him wonder...

"What exactly..._is_ the situation? If it's not really nosy to ask."

Angel shifted away anxiously, not looking him in the eye.

"Oh, well, it's a long story. You probably have work or something."

But just the thought of going back to work made him nervous. He had not clinched this thing enough to go home and rest easy that he'd see the girl again. It was crazy to think of leaving before he at least worked up the nerve to ask for her number.

"Oh, I've got time. I've got plenty of time."

"Well," Angel grinned slyly, swiveling back and forth coyly in her chair. "So long as you've got plenty of time. Come sit down. I'll get us some coffee. Don't get your hopes up, though-it's only shitty hospital coffee."

"That's okay," he laughed, lightheaded with his good luck. He didn't think he was bad to look at, he had decent luck with ladies most of the time-but this, this serendipitous type of thing where he just randomly fell into hanging out with a girl, had never happened to him before. It felt a lot like fate, like what his _lita, _his grandma, was always talking about.

"It'll at least help me stay awake until my shift ends," she yawned as they sat down together, knees tapping together with the undulations of their chairs.

Darwin watched, trying to hide his beaming smile. _Thank you, Erik, you crazy freaking drunkard. _

"So, what's up with him? I mean, is he like...a mental? Or does he actually know that guy?"

Angel's face as she watched her stirring coffee tightened unhappily, as if she were biting back a frown.

"No. They know each other."

Taking a deep breath, she started the story. Darwin was more interested in listening to her talk than listening to her tale, but he made sure to look perfectly interested anyway, watching her full mouth as she spoke. God, she was so beautiful...

"Mr. Xavier-Charles-was admitted a long time ago...a long _long _time ago. Before I ever even started here. Erik was driving and they got into a car accident. Erik walked off without a scratch and Charles never woke up again. So yeah...it's been really hard on him."

"Without a scratch," Darwin echoed in a murmur, shocked. God, what were the chances? What kind of fate was that that took so much out of one person and so little out of the other? What could it have hurt for fate to spread it out equally? Surely Erik would rather a few broken bones to this kind of guilt without purpose.

Angel continued without looking at him, swirling her coffee in its mug.

"He's in a coma. Has been ever since. But Erik visits him every day."

She looked up, shaking the morbid thoughts from her mind.

"If only life worked backwards, huh?" she asked, cheering up. "At least then you'd know it had a happy ending. Erik and Charles would just get younger and younger and Charles would wake up-they'd be back in their apartment and dating. I've seen pictures-they were a cute couple when they were...well, our age I guess." She broke into a giddy grin. "You know how they met?"

Darwin smiled back, happy when accident or Angel shifted their chairs a bit closer, happy that they could get onto a more cheerful topic, a more romantically inclined one.

"How?" he asked, voice soft with budding affection.

"Erik was nineteen and he had some college class-damn, what was it called? Mutant Rights History or Civil Rights Debate or something-I don't remember. But you know the class. When were mutants first cropping up, are they covered under human rights, are we human or something more or something _better_?"

Darwin couldn't help but blush a little. He could tell that she was mutant because her hospital ID had the same bright MU-number on blue background that all mutants were tagged with, but did she know he was mutant? Should he spell it out for her? She didn't seem like a "moog," a mutant who hated mutancy, their own and, sometimes even more so, anyone else's. Well, he could wait and find out. Maybe by time he admitted to it she'd like him too much to stop seeing him just because he was MU.

"Anyway," Angel continued, oblivious to his anxiety. "Erik's got this class, and this kid comes and sits in the desk next to him, and Erik hardly notices him. But then the kid starts just unloading his backpack. I mean like his whole backpack or something. He's got a fancy notebook and all the assigned readings and a whole slew of highlighters and pens and post-it notes and he's just taking up his whole little desk with all this junk and Erik just looks over so surprised and the guy sort of smiles back at him all blushing and cute and Erik says he knew. He just knew. Right then and there, he knew they were either going to be best friends or boyfriends but they were going to know each other forever-it was like you could just look into the future and see the whole length of their lives together-that's what he said."

Angel stilled from her cheerful gabbing, frowning sadly again.

"...Only I guess neither of them saw _this_."

On an impulse Darwin put his coffee down and reached forward, fitting his palm over the joint of Angel's knee. And she looked up at him, the sadness rolling out of big brown eyes like passing clouds and she smiled at him and he knew. He just knew.


	4. Angel

The bus swerved suddenly and Angel swayed sideways, her thigh pressing into her seat partner's. They shared an awkward smile over it when she pulled away again. _Oh gosh, ha ha. _She held tighter to the pole separating her seat from the aisle and repeated her mantra to herself: _Do not throw up on this bus. Do not throw up on this bus._

She thought again if she should have called in. She'd thrown up twice this morning, hadn't been able to even eat her morning banana. But she didn't feel sick. No fever, no aches, no cough, no sore throat, no runny nose. Could be food poisoning. Very very mild food poisoning. She tried to think of what she'd eaten last night. Lime tortilla chips, salsa, some Dr. Pepper. Not her most nutritious meal. Which was why she was trying so hard to be good today: banana, a salad for lunch, vinaigrette dressing, some Saltines. She'd blow it all on dinner: her craving for greasy pepperoni pizza could not be held at bay forever.

She jumped up for her stop and rushed off the bus, just making it to the trash can before she threw up.

Some guy waiting for his bus stared at her in terror behind his newspaper. Blushing to high heaven, she rushed across the parking lot to the hospital. She could not afford to take a day off, and food poisoning was not contagious. Since she was forced to take sick days whenever she was communicable, it was best not to waste them on a little bit of nausea. And anyway, she'd made it past the bus. The hard part was over.

She bought some mouthwash at the gift shop, gritting her teeth at the prices, and ducked into the bathroom to rinse her mouth out. Then she took a quick detour to the clinic. Carlotta was working the shift with her this morning. It was okay if she was a little bit late.

"Hello, Fifty Shades Of," she teased, tugging on Dr. Grey's sleeve while he wasn't paying attention, getting some coffee. Dr. Howser at the vending machine sniggered playfully.

"Nurse, this mental patient has obviously escaped from the Ward. Please bring her back there immediately for a thorough hosing-down," Nate called to the atrium, making the nurse there look up and then around, as if he could be speaking to someone else.

"Shut up, nerd," she giggled. God, she was giggling. What the hell. Was this a symptom?

"What are you up to?" Nate questioned, gulping down some coffee.

"I'm feeling sickly and came to take advantage of my doctor friend."

"I hope you mean take advantage of sexually and not professionally."

"Sorrryyyy," she smiled, batting her lashes.

"One day you're going to realize that no one will ever laugh at your awful sense of humor the way I do."

"You know I don't date telepaths. You should have thought of that before you decided to be one."

"That's speciesism, that's what that is. That's illegal. I'm going to turn you into the police, post haste."

Pouting unhappily, she got down to business.

"I'm serious, Nate. I'm dying. Diagnose me."

Keeping his coffee within hand's reach with his telekinesis, Nate grabbed her and pressed his palm to her forehead, frowning seriously.

"I see what you mean. You definitely have flesh-eating necrosis. Please leave so I can see patients who actually have a chance of life."

"Come on," she growled. "You don't have all day and neither do I. Just tell me if I have food poisoning or the flu, that's all I ask."

"What are you symptoms, madam?" Nate questioned seriously, rubbing his chin.

"I threw up twice this morning while I was trying to eat breakfast and once just now getting off the bus."

"Hot," the other doctor said, peeling his Snickers bar with a grin. She glared at him. Her friends could joke with her. Not fucking strangers. Fuck him. Blushing under her glare, Howser turned and started reading the bulletin board awkwardly before finally leaving.

"Anythings else? Fever? Nausea? Chills? Aches? Pains? Spontaneous orgasms?"

"Nausea," Angel growled. "More so since you started talking."

"What'd you eat last night?"

"Chips and salsa. Some soda."

"You're so healthy. This must be why you got into nursing. You're going to live forever with nutrition like that. I'm _so _jelly."

"Shut up, please."

"Well, what were you eating this morning? Maybe it'd gone off."

"A banana. I didn't even get around to peeling it. As soon as I grabbed it I had to run for the hills. I threw up just once. Which is weird, right? Then I tried to eat again-threw up again. Once. Then I had to go catch the bus."

Nate's face lit up in a joking smile and he tapped her on the chin with a light fist. "Hey, maybe you're pregnant," he laughed. Rolling her eyes, she shoved him.

"Shut up, I'm on birth control."

"Well," he said, wagging his finger at her. "That is only 99.9999999% effective. Maybe you've got a miracle baby."

"I use condoms anyway."

"This argument only proves that you overshare, but since when did you and Trevor ever use condoms?"

Angel rolled her eyes. "Yeah well I broke up with Trevor two months ago, didn't I? I wasn't talking about Trevor."

"Right. That _new _guy. Well, I don't know what to tell you then. Condoms break? You're just _that _unlucky? You're one of those girls who doesn't know she's pregnant until she goes to take a shit and a baby pops out? I'm a doctor, not a psychic-oh wait, I'm also a psychic." Thus saying, he reached for her head, trying to do his awful Mind Meld trick, but she ducked out of it, shoving his hand away.

"You're a real creep, you know that?" she accused as she left. He shouted after her for the whole waiting room to hear.

"You'll have to stop stripping now that you're a mother, you know!"

She glared back at him as she walked, swiping her finger across her throat in a promise for later. Nate never let her live down that stripping thing. Why hadn't she been smart and fucking lied when they played _Never Have I Ever _in grad school?

* * *

Nate was crazy, she told herself, attempting to breathe around the lump of ambient dread in her chest. She'd have better luck with WebMD. She always judged patients who came in quoting web phrases at the doctor but she got it now. Some doctors just really didn't know what they were talking about. Like Nate. What were the chances of birth control _and _condoms failing her? And she and Darwin had only slept together a handful of times, hand only started seriously dating recently. What was she supposed to say? _I know we've just progressed to overnight stays, but I'm pregnant! Congratulations, Daddy!_

It was ridiculous.

Sure she wasn't as gung-ho about birth control as some girls she knew-she didn't set an alarm for it or anything, sometimes she didn't remember till the next day, but she was blessed with a well behaved menstrual cycle that didn't take advantage of her forgetfulness, and anyway that's what condoms were for. Even though Darwin commented that his mutation would prevent any unwanted transference, she'd still played it safe and insisted on the rubbers. That was responsible of her, wasn't it? Why should she be punished with an unplanned pregnancy after a show of so much responsibility?

This was much safer than she'd ever played it with Trevor, her go-nowhere ex-but they'd broken up months ago. Even if she hadn't played it safe with him, she'd escaped, luckily enough. Thank God. It wouldn't be great to have a taxi-driving high-school drop-out as a baby-daddy but Trevor would be ten times worse: Darwin at least was a good guy. Trevor, on top of his laziness, his triffling, his _cheating, _seemed to see it as his duty to make her life more difficult for her than it ever needed to be. If fate didn't punish her for him why did it want to punish her for Darwin?

But none of this was anything she needed to think about because _she was not pregnant._

"What's up with you, honey?" Carlotta sighed heavily, clasping her hand over Angel's where she was tapping her pen mindlessly against the counter.

"Nothing," Angel gasped back, blushing hotly. She stood all in a rush, chair slipping under her and skidding on the linoleum.

"I'm going to get started on beds."

She escaped quickly, doing her rounds away from the other nurse's prying eyes. It was a little difficult working with an Empath, but luckily Carlotta was only D-class. She couldn't sense much past a few feet, and couldn't tell anything for sure without physical touch. Angel worried heavily what the woman had got from her already by grabbing her hand. She wondered if Carlotta had done it on purpose. But that wasn't likely. Carlotta didn't much care for her mutation and certainly didn't go out her way to read people.

She got through her rooms quickly with her impassioned work-ethic. She always worked faster when she was trying not to think about something. When she'd found out Trevor had cheated on her Dr. Matthews had actually had to pull her aside and tell her to slow down because she'd started to make the patients nervous.

She managed to pause on her own recognizance, though, when she got to Charles' room.

Erik didn't come in on weekdays until after work, so she probably wouldn't see him today. But his hand was evident everywhere in Charles' room: the fancy bouquet of blue hyacinth and tulips he'd put on the man's nightstand. The cards from friends he had propped up on his table. The little stack of books he kept on the shelf to choose from for their daily reading sessions.

She liked doing her rounds when Erik was there. Without him it was just an empty room that only held the meaning he'd left there. She thought of them as _his _books, _his _photographs, _his _cards...his _boyfriend_. She'd dillydally while he read and he wouldn't stop like he did with some people, but would smile at her, like he knew he was reading to her too. She wasn't much of a reader but she liked it when he did it. And she liked it when they worked together, when they'd talk softly and brush Charles' hair, clip his nails, give him a bath. It was like playing with a big doll, like her dad was playing with her again. It brought them close, gave them a chance to chat a little, teammates working towards the completion of a single task.

"I was driving," Erik had said during one of these sessions.

Angel had said the first thing that came to mind, which was unfortunately a total cliche.

"Erik, it wasn't your fault..."

Luckily, the man seemed to choose to ignore her, seeking to get whatever was weighing him down off his chest, focusing solely on redressing his boyfriend as he did it.

"We were arguing. I ran a red light-I didn't even notice. I never saw-I never _felt _the other car-not until it hit."

He'd opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something else, but then closed it again, a thin pained line, his eyes dry but so tortured. Angel hadn't known what to do, so she just did what she did when one of her kid brothers was hurt. She'd reached across the sleeping man and hugged him. Stiff as the older man had been, she couldn't help but feel that he'd liked it, at least a little.

Doing this without him felt like playing a game she was too old for. Going through the motions, no meaning. She hummed to herself as she pulled off Charles' oxygen mask for a moment and stripped the blankets.

_In that great gettin up morning_

_Fare thee well, fare thee well!_

She hadn't seen her mother since Thursday and still the song was stuck in her head, same as always. It'd be another week before she stopped singing it and then she'd visit her mom and it listen to her as she cooked and it would happen all over again. Oh well. She continued to sing it and started rearranging him with the aid of pillows, moving him as easily as a piece of furniture. She'd been doing this too long to think of him as anything else. She'd been taking care of him since she started her nursing job three years ago, through bed sores and ear infections and pneumonia-she was only glad this bout had been mild and easily conquered.

She remembered two years ago when he'd come down with much worse luck it hadn't seemed like there was anything they could do to keep him alive. Everyone had about given up on him. Dr. McCoy had been sure it was the end, going so far as to call Raven, Charles' sister, to tell her that if she wanted to see him before he died she had to get on a plane ASAP. Medicine had done everything it could for him. There was nothing left to do but leave it up to fate. Even Erik had seemed nervous, although he insisted to everyone within earshot that Charles was going to make it. She wasn't sure how much of that was firm belief and how much was a sort of talisman against Charles' death. If he just said it enough surely it'd come true. She guessed he had something there: Charles had pulled through sure enough.

_But for what?_ she wondered as she fluffed his pillows and fixed him into a good position, settling his oxygen mask back in place carefully. For all the good it had done him to survive he might as well have died.

She paused suddenly, blankets in her hands, struck dumb with her own capability towards callousness. Maybe it wouldn't make any difference to Charles if he was alive or dead, little as he was aware of his own life at the moment. But Erik? Like a junked car with just grime holding it together, Angel wasn't sure how Erik would keep going if he didn't have Charles to hinge his life upon. How could she think something so awful upon a guy who the worst thing about him was that he was slightly delusional? Delusional in a good way too, though not a healthy one, in a way that miraculously kept his love alive through all these years?

She chewed on the inside of her cheek and replaced the blankets, tucking the man in carefully, bundling his cardigan close. Erik was always worried he was too cold. His pale blue-white hand rested listless on top of the dark feather duvet where she'd put it to keep it clear for the IV. She could see the blue lines under his white skin, and the tiny lines of his very cells like little hair lines, like the cracks in porcelain.

On a curious impulse she reached out, stroking his hand tentatively. The skin was very soft, cool to the touch. Erik took good care of him, rubbing his hands with lotion, especially in the winter. She watched the man's face, running her fingertips over the bones of his hand. How did Erik do this every single day? How did you look at a face that could offer up no expression and keep loving it? Charles could do nothing to feed Erik's love, as far as she could tell. How long before it starved? What was it even surviving so long on? Could it really last forever?

Angel moved her hand under Charles', as if he were holding it, her fingers warming his palm.

"Mr. Xavier?" she whispered, and then bent, pressing her brow to his cheek without knowing what she was doing, and spoke without meaning to do that either. "It's time to wake up now, Mr. Xavier. He's waited long enough, okay? I'm not sure how much longer he can hold out for. Don't tell him I said that. He'd be so pissed. He thinks he can wait as long as you can. I don't know, though, I don't know-"

She was sobbing, but she didn't know why the fuck she was sobbing. It wasn't like a normal good cry like she got from dramatic movies or viral proposal videos. This was like hysterical someone-had-just-died sobbing, and she didn't know what the fuck had gotten into her. She never cried like this. Not fucking ever.

Which was why Carlotta probably looked so seriously worried when she found her, collapsed on the floor like a puppet with the strings cut, still holding Charles' hand and hyperventilating with tears.

"It's just so sad!" she wailed, gasping for impossible-to-catch breath.

"Oh, baby," Carlotta sighed, picking her up and secreting her to the crash bed in the back. "You just lie down. You'll feel better in a little. I'll finish your rooms."

Angel wanted to say something like thank you, something like an apology for breaking down like this, but when she opened her mouth she just heard herself sniffling, "It's so sad. It's just too sad."

"I know, honey," Carlotta cooed, swaddling her up in the cheap hospital blankets and stroking her hair. "I know."

After a few more murmuring pats Carlotta left, and Angel immediately sobbed herself to sleep.


	5. Raven

"No, Kurt, I'm drying that one! Daddy, I'm drying that one!" Raven could hear her daughter whining from the kitchen, high-pitched and furious.

"Kurt, let your sister dry that one," Azazel said, voice as always so low and gravelly, echoing in Erik's high-ceilinged kitchen, so that Raven had to smile. Cool as a cucumber. Who'd have guessed the man who'd Teleported her to the top of the Washington Monument on a drunken whim would be such a calm and unflappable father to their annoying kids?

"But Dad! It's just a plate!"

"Then you shouldn't have any problem letting her dry it."

Shaking her head, Raven just smiled, pausing her sore arms in their rocking: Graydon was fast asleep. What a blessing. She placed him gently on the center of the bed: gray bedspread. He'd finally got rid of their old bedspread, juvenile multi-colored stripes that Charles had just had to have for their new apartment, no matter how many times she told him it was dorky as all hell. She paused a few seconds at the side of the bed to make sure Graydon wasn't going to wake up and throw a fit at her daring to put him down, and then snuck back to the main part of the condo, keeping very quiet.

She did not want to be dragged into helping clean up dinner. This was her goddamned vacation. If Az got a break from his work then she should get a break from hers: no cooking, no cleaning-if she could give up parenting for the week it would be paradise, but she didn't think Az would quite let her get away with that much.

He should, really. It would go a long ways towards making this trip worth it. She hadn't even wanted to come, Azazel was the one who had convinced her, in his roundabout way. "Fine, stay home, I'll take the older kids with me." That had been tempting, until she realized what he was saying: she'd be stuck at home alone with the baby. That was one Az couldn't take along with him even if he wanted to. At just a few months old, Graydon was very much dependent on his mother.

Now that she was here, though, and she wondered if it wouldn't be better to be locked in her own house with her own screaming baby. It was cold here, for one, colder than she remembered. Everything seemed dead-the empty-leaved trees, the cold stone streets, the pale ghostly buildings. She couldn't go anywhere without a jacket. Shoes were back in her repertoire and she'd forgotten how constricting they were. The cat kept growling at her for no reason: a skinny little black thing. Dantes. One of _his _favorite characters: the vengeful man who learns forgiveness. Charles just ate that shit up.

On top of it all was Erik. Was Charles.

_Speak of the devil..._

As she made herself a weak drink at the bar near the living room, the tall man sidled up beside her under the pretence of making himself a Scotch on the rocks. Even though she'd seen him at the airport, in the car, at dinner, she was struck anew at how skinny he looked-even his T-shirt seemed loose on him. It was the lifestyle he forced on himself. This ridiculous vigil, this crypt of a fucking house. She was relieved again that she'd gotten out of this-married-moved away-grown up. She was alive, moving on, and Erik was killing himself with this. Didn't he see it too? Why wouldn't he let her get him out of this mess?

"That's a good picture," he mumbled next to her, not saying what he wanted to say, what he'd come here to say, and she was glad because it wasn't something she wanted to get into, not only just now but ever.

Her eyes refocused from their daydreaming and she realized she was staring at the framed photo above the liquor cabinet: Charles fiddling with his bowtie, tuxedo so stark and crisp. Moira's wedding-a touchy subject for both of them.

"He always liked weddings," she found herself murmuring, staring at his wide red smile, his crinkled sparkling eyes.

Beside her, Erik dropped the decanter, but snatched it up back quickly, fumbling.

"He's an old soul," he gasped, voice pained. "Charles was ready for kids and a husband since puberty. Raven-I'm sorry-I'm sorry that I wasn't. You know if I could go back and change that I would-"

"That's not what I was saying!" Raven hissed, glancing at him wildly. God, why could they not just talk like sane adults? Why did he have to drag her into his manic obsession? "I have to use the bathroom," she lied through her teeth, and before he could stop her she escaped into the bathroom and locked the door loudly behind her.

Every conversation with him like this was a new blade to the heels, and she didn't doubt that he felt the same. But why did he have to think everything she said to him was a reproof, an accusation? She knew he thought she blamed him for what happened to Charles. And she did, in a way. He'd saved himself easily enough. Why couldn't he have done the same for Charles? Because he hadn't loved Charles then, not the way he did now when he was trying to make up for it. So what? Just because he hadn't loved Charles the proper amount, just because it was mostly his fault-did that mean they couldn't be friends, could love each other the way they used to? Why couldn't they go back to how they were? Erik had been her closest friend, back when Charles' ghost wasn't standing between them, chilling their friendship into a biting frost of painful half-sentences and guilty reminders.

Locked in securely, she took deep breaths over the sink. She could be in LA right now. She'd be bathing in the sunlight in their back yard, maybe some wine in hand, and she wouldn't have to see any pictures of Charles unless she went and dug one out of the old photo album.

Instead she was fucking bombarded. She was locked in the bathroom like a teenager, trying to escape-what? Being dragged back into this mess. She'd told Az this was a bad idea.

She stared at herself in the mirror, dark blue skin and slick blood orange hair, eyes dark yellow and miserable. She had nothing to feel guilty about. She'd played Erik's ridiculous game of pretend for years. Years and years. No one could ask any more of her.

So why was this so hard? Why was it so painful to be reminded?

Without fully deciding to, she morphed: dark brown hair that needed a cut if he could ever remember to get around to it, freckled nose slightly too wide for his face, and sparkling blue eyes, rose red lips. She added a high-collared white button up, the one with the Chinese food stain on the sleeve, but it was covered with his favorite cardigan, the fuzzy blue one with wooden buttons that he'd found at a flea market in 11th grade.

But her expression on his face made him look too serious, like he was disappointed in her, like she'd done something wrong. She tried to fix it by smiling, but the eyes didn't match it and it made his face strained, as if he were faking, struggling to hide how much she'd let him down.

Raven stopped immediately, letting the visage fall from her, reminded why she never did this anymore. It was too morbid. She wasn't better off than any human: for all her mutant powers she still couldn't bring Charles back. No one could. Not the doctors with all their medical savvy, not other telepaths for all their mental scrounging, and not Erik for all his self-sacrifice. It was just that Erik was the only one who hadn't gotten the memo.

Nothing she or Hank or anyone else could say was ever going to convince Erik to let go. He'd held on for eleven years: what was another eleven to him? He'd keep Charles there for the rest of their lives, and die slowly day by day just waiting for a miracle that was never going to come.

She couldn't let him do that.

She'd lost one brother, and Erik was all she had left of that. She couldn't lose them both. She just had to help him to let go. He'd understand, afterwards. He couldn't stay mad at her forever: she was all he had, too. Or she would be, after she went to Hank.

She'd already expressed her desire to let Charles truly go, to let his body follow where his spirit had gone a long time ago. The problem was, it took both her and Erik to get anything done in Charles' care, anything that big. As long as Erik held on he was forcing her to hold on, forcing Charles to hold on-keeping them all stuck in the same mire.

Luckily, with her mutation, it was a reasonably simple thing to be Erik for a day, to be him long enough to sign some papers, to dupe Dr. McCoy, so easy to dupe anyway. Erik might sue her afterwards, might hate her, hell, she could probably go to jail for mutation abuse or something-but she had to do what she had to do. If for no one else but Charles, this was something that had to be done. She was just the only one capable of doing it.

It was just too unfair the way it was. She remembered what it had been like, those first few weeks after the accident: the relief that it hadn't been worse, that he hadn't died, that it might take a while but surely he was bound to wake up soon, the waiting. Always, the waiting. Now she knew. Relief was a mirage. They _had _gotten fate's worst. If Charles had died in the car crash, it would have been so much easier on both of them. There'd have been something concrete, some kind of closure. This, this slow death, this spiritual death with a technically live body, was too ambiguous to live through. Raven knew he was dead because everything that made Charles more than just a body was gone. For Erik, as long as there was a heart beating and it was in Charles' chest, he'd be there. She just had to stop that heart and Erik would come to his senses, would realize what she'd known for years: Charles had left them a long time ago.

She just hoped she could get through the next few days without Erik realizing what she was up to.

* * *

"S-T-R-I-T-A-S," Kurt spelled as they got out of the taxi. "D'you know what that spells?"

"Of course!" Marie snarled back at him, fighting with her scarf. Raven furrowed a brown, arranging the baby blanket over Graydon's car seat to protect from the cold.

"It spells Saint Rita's," Kurt explained patiently.

"Does not," his sister mocked back to him. "Spells stritas."

"Mom," Kurt complained, turning to her plaintively. She was saved from any parenting by Az coming up, picking Marie up in his arms.

"Okay, let's go," he grinned, taking the diaper bag in his free arm.

Raven followed more grudgingly. She could do this. She _had _to do this. It was the right thing. Erik would be upset at first, she just had to accept that, but he'd thank her in the long run. He couldn't stay mad at her forever, not without Charles to fall back on. She was all he had. Once he stopped this ridiculousness, she would be all he had. He couldn't keep doing this to himself; she couldn't _let _him keep doing this to himself. She had to look out for him. Not just for what he wanted but for what he needed, what would keep him alive, healthy, well-adjusted. If his own mother were still alive she'd support her in this.

Az and the kids filed into the hospital room on the fifth floor without a hitch, but Raven required a fortifying breath before she could manage it. Erik, already present, greeted them all with joy and holiday cheer: he'd never celebrated Christmas, but Charles had made up for his abstaining with almost rabid Christmas celebrating. It had all been very dizzying, in a wonderful, drunken sort of way. Since the accident, Erik had taken over Charles' Christmas traditions. Raven understood. Living with Charles, you got used to certain things. Losing those things was just another way of losing him. It was the same reason she bought herself marzipan on every birthday.

Still, it was all a bit eerie to watch. Like a seance: a ritual Erik was putting on to bring Charles back. If the lights were just right, if he tied the bows just the way Charles did, if he played the same songs and made the same inedible Christmas cookies, then Charles would come back. All Erik had to do was strike on the right combination of the right acts and like a magic act-poof, Charles would be back, smiling and laughing and _alive_.

As such, the room was decked out with multi-colored Christmas lights, Christmas-colored paper chains, paper snowflakes, and a Santa-and-reindeer mobile hanging from the ceiling. Not to mention the actual live tree in the corner, miniature though it was. It was still big enough to fit plenty of presents underneath.

And then there was Charles.

The man in the bed looked wrenchingly pale, waxy under the flamboyant lighting. The skin was too thin-like rice paper-showing through faint blue veins that only added to his paleness. He was much skinnier than she remembered, drowning in his favorite Christmas sweater, the Nordic looking one in gray and white. He hardly looked like her brother anymore, so that the sweater had a hint of blasphemy about it: some sick stranger wearing her brother's clothes.

She put her hand over his on the bed-papery and cool to touch, like her grandmother's.

_I'm going to put an end to this charade, Charles, _she thought. _I promise._

Kurt had been here before and knew the routine; after he hugged Erik hello he went and kissed Charles on the cheek, leaning heavily across the pillows.

"Merry Christmas, Uncle Charles!"

Marie, not to be outdone, copied him exactly. Erik smiled at Raven, as if proud to show her that he wasn't alone in thinking Charles was still alive. She wanted badly to tell him that they were freaking kids: they were used to playing pretend. He was an adult. He should know better.

"The room looks great as always, Erik," Azazel approved, pushing the diaper bag under Charles' bed to save room. It was decent-sized but still crowded, housing three adults and three kids, two of them very active. It was claustrophobic. Raven couldn't breathe.

"Wow, are these all for us?" Kurt gasped, reading his name on the presents under the tree.

"Those are from me and Uncle Charles," Erik grinned, winking. Raven thought she was going to be sick.

"I'm going to step out for a second," she muttered, handing Az the baby carrier, sleeping baby and all. "_Feel free_ to open presents without me."

She slipped out through the staircase, all the way down to the alleyway between the hospital wings. Although it was disgustingly cold here, it felt nice just now, against her overheated skin, the cold, clean air clearing out her lungs. Turning down the dim alley she pulled a cigarette from her pocket and lit up.

Azazel would be able to tell she'd snuck one, but she didn't care. She needed this.

She never even heard Erik come up behind her.

"Mind if bum one?" he questioned, making her jump but she was proud she didn't scream, opting to clutch her heart instead.

"For fuck's sake, Lensherr! What the fuck?"

"Sorry," he chuckled, face wane in the yellowed lights out here. He reached out for her cigarette. "What do you say?"

"You don't even smoke," she muttered, but she handed it over regardless. He took it delicately between two fingers and pulled a short drag.

_Charles is rolling in his grave, _she wanted to say, but didn't.

Regardless, Erik seemed to sense it, looking up suddenly over his cigarette, fiddling with it now. The eyes, always pale, were suddenly piercing, and Raven knew that he knew-was immediately sure of it.

Her heart ran away inside her chest, choking her, and even in the cold air she felt too hot in her jacket.

"Well, I need to go back inside," she panicked, rushing past him to the stairwell door. It clanged loudly in its frame but didn't open. Was this metalbending or her own stupidity for not realizing that outer doors locked on closing? Probably a little of both. Erik grabbed her arm.

"Raven," he stalled seriously and she knew what was coming.

Fuck.

_You weren't going to be able to escape him forever, _she reminded herself. She'd be facing worse than a talking-to after she sat down with Hank. She turned back to him, corralling her courage.

"What, Erik?" she bit out. The man fell back, faltering a little bit. He vied for time, crushing the cigarette under his heel. He didn't want to believe it, Raven realized. He'd heard it but he didn't know what to make of it, didn't understand it at all and thus wasn't sure how to deal with it.

"Dr. McCoy talked to me," he started, easing into it. "He...he said that you'd...that you'd...talked."

"So? He's my brother's doctor. I'm allowed to talk to him."

"You've never talked to him without me before. Without even telling me," Erik pointed out, eyes piercing her again, finding his sense of indignation. She didn't quail under it, readying herself for the real fight.

"What are you trying to say, Erik?" she goaded. She just wanted to get it over with. No more of this beating about the bush, no spending half her day trying to come up with ways to outrun him. She wasn't going to push it off anymore.

Erik met her offer head on, standing up straighter, looking determined. He was done being coy about this as well.

"He told me what you two discussed." He growled suddenly, pulling his hair angrily. "God- _discussed _it! Like it's even something to fucking discuss!"

"You don't get to tell me what I get to discuss with Hank! You won't let me discuss it with you so who the fuck else am I supposed to discuss it with?!"

"No one!" Erik shouted back, door shuddering again with his anger. "God, Raven do you know what you're fucking asking for?! He's your brother-how could you want to help McCoy fucking _kill _him?!"

"Don't you dare," she snarled, lunging forward to jab her finger into his chest. "You've been getting away with that shit for eleven fucking years, Erik. Okay? Maybe I wasn't the best sister, but don't pretend you're some kind of saint because you're doing this. Sitting up there like the doting knight: we both know what you're trying to atone for, and I get it, but keeping him up there like Snow White is not the way to earn it! You are not fucking helping him with your fucked up penance."

"_What are you even talking about?!_"

"You were not a perfect boyfriend-don't fucking pretend to me that you were because I was there! Eleven years is a long time, but don't expect for me to forget what you were like back then! And that's fine, that's whatever, we were all young and dumb and immature-but what you're doing now-it's just sick!" She could tell by his quirked brows that Erik was going to argue against this but rushed on, refusing to let him. "Refusing to let him go-that's not endearing, Erik, it's just fucked up, and if he were alive he'd tell you the same fucking thing and you know it!"

"He's alive now!"

"He's not!" she was shocked by her own scream in her throat, and clutched Erik out of surprise and desperation, holding fast to his wool coat, struggling to be understood. "He's gone, Erik, and all of your self-sacrificing isn't going to bring him back. I know I can't force you to understand that. I've been trying for years. But don't try to convince me. Don't try to tell me that his life will come back if I just give up mine. Destroying yourself isn't going to change anything, so don't ask me to join in, too."

Erik shook his head, trying to shake out her arguments and replace them with his own.

"You should not have gone to McCoy, Raven. You shouldn't have. We need to be a united front on this."

Shaking sadly, she let her hands fall from him, two people alone together in some grimey alleyway.

"We're not a united front on this, Erik. I've been telling you how I felt for years. You were just too stubborn to listen. I had to tell someone who would _listen_."

"I can't believe you," he murmured, and his eyes under the lamplights were eerily pale, and a little scared. Did he suspect what she was going to do? Or was he just terrified by how much he really didn't understand her?

"I know you can't."

Erik stood with his hands out, as if trying to pass onto her some glimmer of wisdom. His voice was faint with overwrought emotion. "He's your brother. He took care of you. He protected you. He would never give up on you, Raven-not _even _after eleven years. You can't give up on him. I won't let you give up on him."

Tears came rushing to her eyes, and she bit down on her lip to keep it from trembling. She knew this guilt trip very well, and was disgusted that it still worked on her.

She bit back the vengeful words she wanted to say: _He __**is **__my brother. And so are you. And I __**am **__going to protect you both because I'm going to take him away from you. I'm not going to let him be the instrument of your torture anymore. Wherever Charles is, I know he'd be on my side._

"It's not up to you, Erik," she whispered.

And she turned on her heel, walked back to the main entrance of the hospital, straight in to the ladies' room and into the handicapped stall, crying silently as she morphed and grabbed her phone, dialing Hank's office with Erik's fingers.

"Hello, Dr. McCoy's office," a cheerful receptionist answered, jarring Raven with her bubbliness. She choked back her tears and said, voice appropriately deep but too tense.

"Hello. This is Erik Lensherr."

"Oh, hello Mr. Lensherr! It's so great to hear from you again!"

Raven shook her head, waving that off. Erik was best friends with all the hospital attendants. After eleven years getting to know one another, how could he not be.

"I need to make an appointment with Hank-with Dr. McCoy."

"Oh...of course! Well, let's see then...did you want an office appointment or he could come by the hospital room-I know you don't like to waste your visitation time."

"No, the office-please." Raven tipped her head back, struggling to sniffle back tears before they impeded her voice, wiping her eyes with the heel of her free hand.

"Oh! Okay, well it looks like he's free on the 19th, around...2? Or I could try to set something up after work, around 5:30 or 6."

"The 19th?" Raven asked in shock, staring at the phone a moment before clutching it desperately. "No, I need something earlier than that! This week-it has to be this week!"

The other line was blank for a few moments, and then the receptionist came back warily.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lensherr...Dr. McCoy's visiting his family-he doesn't get back until after the first of the year. I'm so sorry. I could cancel some other appointments-I could get you in on the 5th or the 6th...Is..." the woman's voice took on a thick, distressed tone. "Is something wrong? Has something changed with...with Charles?"

Raven struggled for breath, managed to gasp out, "No...no..." before shock forced her to hang up, which she did hardly realizing it.

Then she sat down on the toilet and sobbed.

She was interrupted after a few tortuous minutes by someone tapping on the door. She could tell by their shoes that they were a security guard.

"Sir? Sir are you alright in there? ...Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of there. You're in the women's restroom, sir," the young broguish voice informed nervously.

She blinked down at herself, still morphed as Erik-his wide hands, his dark suit, her own MU security band from the hospital biting into his wrist. She morphed back quickly and stormed out of the stall in a sullen rush, glaring at the young guard for interrupting her. She shoved tears away as she stormed back to the elevators.

As she looked down at the face that used to belong to her brother back in the hospital room, her children playing too loudly with their new toys, her husband struggling to feed an unpleasable baby, Erik eyeing her worriedly, the disappointment sloughed away. Closing her eyes, she spoke in her heart to the brother she had lost.

_Don't worry,_ she thought. _I won't give up. I won't let him keep you here. I won't let him suffer anymore._

If she had to fly back to New York to get this finally settled, then she would. She didn't know when. She didn't know when they'd be able to swing it, between time and money, but she would do it. And sooner rather than later. If she had to dip into her inheritance and hire a nanny for the weekend then that's what she'd do.

Calm again, she bent and kissed the man on his cool brow, meeting Erik's eye when she rose, not letting anything show to the prying gaze.

Anna Marie came up then, putting a bracelet she'd made with her new bead kit on Charles' wrist, suddenly looking at him seriously.

"Mommy, is Uncle Charles going to sleep forever?"

Erik answered for her, eyes boring like cool stones into his sister. "No, honey. He's not."

Raven didn't bother to contradict him. She agreed. She was going to stop this eternal sleep, and she was going to stop Erik's deluded dreaming at the same time.

"Come on, kids," she said strongly. "It's past your bedtimes."


	6. Hank

Hank McCoy checked his watch, and then the clock his phone, just to be sure. He still had half an hour, but he couldn't help but feel the clock had said the same thing half an hour ago. As much as he dreaded what was to come, he still wished the time would pass faster. It seemed like he'd been waiting here, incapable of focusing on anything, all day, and maybe he had. He was sure he'd read this page before, or at least looked at it, repeatedly, without gaining anything, understanding anything.

His hands tightened on the folder and he had the urge to fling it off his desk, into the trash or maybe just away, spilling pages into a drawer that he could then slam shut very loudly. But he didn't. Gritting his teeth, he closed the folder neatly and put it carefully onto a corner of his desk, then realized it could not be out when his visitor arrived and so he stood up and filed it away in the cabinet. He checked his watch again, cracked his knuckles nervously and tidied his office as if staging a play. _Enter man from stage left. Doctor sitting behind perfect desk in perfect office, awards and certificates gleaming behind him: automatically important, powerful, convincing._

Steadied by this image, he straightened the picture frames on the wall behind his desk, blowing dust off old patents for Devices, his diploma, his Genius Grant to work on the Vaccine, although obviously it didn't state on there precisely what it was for, just "Advances is Mutant Medicine". Most mutants suspected the government was working on a vaccine, a "Mutant Cure" but they suspected it the way humans suspected there was an Area 51, or that the Loch Ness Monster was a secret government warship in disguise. If they knew it was an actual project Hank would probably get death threats by the day, even though he was just part of a team, a prodigy putting his great mind to work on a great but ignoble challenge, an asset but not a director.

Hank had always liked challenges. And he had always liked how brilliantly he overcame them. It wasn't a disgusting amount of pride, he thought, but what was wrong in being a bit proud of how smart you were? Especially when his brains did so much good for people? Although some mutants thought the Vaccine was the worst form of anti-mutant sentiment, that was not why Hank was working on it. Hank, like the small percent of mutants and even humans who secretly supported the Vaccine, simply knew that sometimes the best way to help mutants was to make them _less mutant. _

It was all well and good for Healers, or Shapeshifters, or Teleporters, but what about Jennet at the Check-In Desk? So beautiful except for her whole bottom half was practically an exact replication of a squid. What was the usefulness of that? How was that supposed to help her? Wouldn't she be happier, more fulfilled, if Hank could turn her, like the Little Mermaid, human and whole?

Wiping a smudge of fingerprint off his photograph with the President, Hank turned and looked over his office for flaws again, but this wasn't the first time he had staged it that day so it really was pretty immaculate at this point. He checked his watch again. _Where was he?_ Anita would have called him if he was waiting in the anteroom-but then again she was greedy for his conversation, it was possible she was simply hogging him, pretending to forget to inform Hank of his arrival.

Surreptitiously, Hank tip-toed to the opposite wall and pressed his ear against the cool plaster. He couldn't hear a sound, but he wondered if that was due to actual silence or to overly thick walls. Sighing heavily, he went back to his desk and threw himself down, fidgeting with his overlarge hands, then pulling at his shoes where they were slowly but surely cutting off circulation to his feet. He took some Tylenol quickly to help ignore the ever-present pain and then there was nothing to do but listen to his own nervous heartbeat and think again of what to say.

He had his whole speech just about written out in his mind, down to every movement of his hands and arch of his eyebrows. The only thing that wasn't written in was how Lensherr would respond. Hank only knew that it would be terrible. For all his awards and certificates and genius grants, he had the awful sickly feeling that it would do little to help him against Lensherr, so cool and unflinching and wrathful, swinging from his fingertips the kind of kingly disdain Hank could only pretend to. It didn't help that Lensherr, as a Mutant Rights Lawyer, was very, very good at arguing.

Overwhelmingly, he wished that Raven were there to support him, or that she had succeeded when she spoke to the man over Christmas. But she wasn't, and her heartfelt plea had dissolved on passionate delusion. Lensherr hadn't swayed to heart, so now it was time to try brain.

Straightening his tie, Hank pulled Xavier's file out from the bottom of the pile in his desk drawer, and bit back on the bile of hatred its sight infused in him.

Dr. Montgomery had retired in the fifth year of Charles' coma, and he had offered the case to Hank. At the time, Hank was beyond overjoyed. Montgomery was an idol, a mix of dark, almost sinister toughness and radiant brilliance. Hank imagined he was giving him the case because he saw something in him, a similar genius akin to his own that would break the case wide open. Now he wondered if it wasn't just disdain, or purposeful sabotage, giving him an impossible case to add a black mark to his impeccable record, to plant the seed of failure in him.

But Hank took refuge in the fact that if he couldn't help Charles, no one could. Montgomery couldn't bring him out of a coma, and couldn't explain the coma itself, and if Hank couldn't either then it really was a lost cause. It was time Lensherr faced that fact. Finally, Hank and Raven agreed on this.

They had been dancing around it for years. Looking back, he wasn't sure who had been trying to convince whom that it was time to throw in the towel. Neither one of them had had the courage to just come out and say it. It was a minor miracle that they came to understand one another, team up, get serious about this. And really, it was curious that they should ever find themselves on the same side of an argument in the first place, he and Raven were so very different.

When they did meet, which was not often, she seemed reminded of the fact that he was a mutant with no discernible mutation, and thus not to be completely trusted; and he was beat over the head with the fact that she was a mutant who could hide her mutation perfectly, look and sound and be whoever she wanted, and yet chose her most ignoble, her most outlandish face. God, what a waste. What he could do with her mutation!

Shaking his head, Hank opened Charles' hefty file, not because he needed to, he'd practically memorized it all years ago, but because it was a poignant prop for the play he was going to put on for, with Lensherr.

_Look at it! _he would want to scream but wouldn't. Not a flutter of an eyelash for eleven years, not a sigh or a twitch or a look. Nothing but pneumonia and sepsis and staving off disease coming to claim an unused husk, like fighting to keep an old cardboard box in the attic impeccably free of mold even though the contents had been emptied years ago. _I'm tired. I don't want to fight this useless battle any more. _

Hank knew that he could just do what Montgomery had done, pass this case off to some other young upstart with passion and naivety enough to think he could fix it. But the thought galled terribly. To pass it off was to admit defeat, not only just to himself, which had already done despite the bitter taste it left in his mouth, but to another _doctor_, someone who could judge him from his own plane. As it was, while it was just between him and Raven and Lensherr, it was simply a family decision.

_What ever happened to that guy in the coma?_

_Oh, his family decided to let him go._

_Ah._

End of discussion. It happened all the time. It was nothing to do with his own failed proficiency, his own apparently lacking intelligence.

Driven by his own heart-wrenching shame, he jumped up and stomped to the anteroom, flinging the door open. Anita looked up from her desk, but the room was empty.

"Is Mr. Lensherr here?" he questioned, although the answer was obvious. Anita didn't bring this fact up.

"Oh, no, sir," she piped back jovially. Plumply middle-age, with bright rosy cheeks and carefully curled auburn hair, no one would look at her know that she was capable of superhuman speeds and time manipulation. Did she even know how lucky she was, to take every advantage from mutation and not deal with any of the physical disruptions? Why were some mutants so humanoid and some so other=worldly? Why was Anita a fine physical specimen and then girls like Jennet or men like him, were cursed with such debilitatingly embarrassing mutations? How did Anita live with herself knowing she'd gotten off so easily?

He shook the disruptive thoughts from his head, blushing miserably, realizing he'd missed the brunt of her reply due to his jealous daydreaming.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Tsk! Off in lala land? I said he's going to meet you in Charles' room. That's all right, isn't it?" she asked suddenly, seeing his face. "Only, you've always met there before. I just assumed it was okay..."

It was true that Lensherr usually moved their meetings to Charles' bedside. He saw time spent in Hank's office as a waste of visitation hours. They met so infrequently Hank had learned to deal with it, but on a day like today, when he had such serious things to discuss, he had needed the perfect control and professionalism of his immaculate office to back him up, needed those awards and certificates behind him like silent bodyguards to protect him from Erik's disappointed dismissiveness. Alone against Lensherr he always felt like such a child. Like a student who'd forgotten to do his homework. No answers, nothing useful to say-woefully unprepared.

* * *

The white 557 emblazoned beside the door seemed the most painful number in the universe. It spoke to how awkward he felt around the nurses that he didn't linger in the hallway longer. The only reason for him on this floor was Charles, so they automatically knew who he was there to see. They were protective of Charles, or maybe they were protective of Erik. They glared at him as he passed. He knew it was irrational-Salvadore was a Physical and LeRoux was an Empath, neither one could see into his psyche-but still he felt as if they knew. They knew how he felt about Erik, about Charles. They knew what he was trying to do. They knew what he'd joined forces with Raven to accomplish.

Taking a fortifying breath, he pushed the door open, striving to strike an imposing figure. Mr. Lensherr was sitting on Charles' bed, clipping the man's nails in the sunlight from the first nice day this winter. Even though Hank knew better, it still looked exactly as if the man were sleeping peacefully. Lensherr looked up momentarily, eying him up and down like a dirty child, then glanced at his watch.

He didn't say anything but Hank still felt immediately emasculated. He had a sweet, supportive family, but Lensherr felt like the cruel, dismissive father he'd never had, and it was a harrowing, depressing experience.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he mumbled, approaching awkwardly as Lensherr finished his task, the snapping of cut nails cracking against his brain in jarring bursts. "I thought we were meeting in my office."

Lensherr's brows knit as he looked carefully over Charles' nails.

"But we always meet here."

"Well yes but I thought that this time we were meeting in my office."

"Why would you think that?"

Hank fidgeted miserably even though Lensherr wasn't looking at him, buffing Charles' nails instead.

"Well when we scheduled on the phone I said 'I'll meet you here'," Hank defended. Lensherr was unimpressed.

"'Here' is not very specific, especially since your office is in the hospital and Charles' room is in the hospital. 'Here' doesn't really differentiate between the two. I'm not a telepath." Saying this, the man glanced up at Charles with a crooked grin, as if they were sharing a private joke. Hank hated it when he did this and found himself gritting his teeth over it.

"Well we figured it out in the end," he said, striving for a veneer of good cheer. Lensherr ignored him, sweeping the nail clippings into his palm and walking them to the trash can. When he returned he sat again on Charles' bed, motioning Hank to the available chair which Hank took immediately out of awkwardness. He realized as soon as he sat down that it was a mistake: the chair was too short, and with Lensherr seated on the hospital bed he had to look up at the gaunt man in a way that frankly galled. But he was too embarrassed to stand up now, so quickly after sitting, and with no pretence to explain it.

"What did you want to talk about, Mr. McCoy?" he questioned, not choosing to call him doctor, and Hank took it as the slight that it was: he couldn't help Charles and so what kind of doctor could he be? He felt that barbs like these were made up the foundation of his relationship with Mr. Lensherr, which was so disheartening. Lensherr cosied up to nurses, to his receptionist, to the damned X-ray technician, but with Hank he was always aloof, reproachful, unimpressed.

It had only gotten worse since he'd talked to Raven, which obviously meant that Lensherr had found out about their conversation, knew what he wanted to talk about now. Still, the man played for time, feigning ignorance, just to make it more painful for Hank, to force him to spell it out. He tried to take comfort in the fact that Raven agreed with him: there was nothing more medicine could do for Charles, nothing more _he_ could do for Charles, or anyone else, he heartily believed. The most humane thing to do, for all involved, was to cease treatment, to let him go. Lensherr was the only one who needed to be convinced of that now, and although Raven hadn't succeeded on that front, Hank had to hope that science would prevail where sentiment hadn't.

"I was hoping we could talk about Mr. Xavier," he said, filling his voice with intent. Lensherr glanced, tetchily, backwards, not enough to see the man except from his peripheral, keeping Hank in view, like a dangerous menace.

"He's doing a lot better, thank you. They took him off the oxygen mask a few days ago. It wasn't serious."

"It was pneumonia."

"But not like last time," Lensherr snapped, obviously unhappy with their conversation because he stood up, going around to rearrange the alstroemeria he'd brought to replace the poinsettias that had disappeared along with the rest of the outlandish Christmas decorations.

Hank didn't press the point, since he hadn't come here to argue about pneumonia anyway.

"You know that I talked to Raven," he murmured, standing as well to keep them on an even height. Lensherr didn't look at him, ghosting his fingers over the white flower petals. He continued stubbornly.

"Mr. Lensherr, you know what this is about. You know what we have to discuss." God, why couldn't he just come out and say this? Why did he let himself get so embarrassed-to the point where he couldn't even do his job?

"We don't _have _to discuss it," Lensherr replied, and his voice was strangled, the muscles of his mouth spasming, trying to keep control. "There's nothing _to _discuss. Raven was just acting out. She didn't know what she was saying. What she was asking for."

"She does," Hank assured, keeping his voice steady and strong through extreme effort. "She knows what she's asking for and she's serious this time, Mr. Lensherr. She knows you can't keep on like this."

"I can. I don't know why she thinks I can't because I can. If he wants me to wait eleven or twenty or fifty fucking years-I-I can." Even Lensherr couldn't manage to say something so impossible with a sure tone. Fifty more years of this? He was terrified with how deeply the delusion had taken a hold of the man.

"He's not making you wait, Mr. Lensherr. He has no idea that you're waiting. He's gone."

The man shuddered, turned away from him, hiding his face.

"That's not true," he insisted, voice low and gravelly.

Time to bring this home. "Your sister told me, Mr. Lensherr. I know why you're doing this. Why you feel you have to do this. But it's not healthy. It's not healthy to keep him here out of contrition."

The man shook his head violently, jerking back to him.

"That's not-that's not what this is. I know that's what she thinks but she's wrong, okay-"

"Mr. Lensherr-"

"No! This is not-it's not-_God_-fucking _penance_! I'm not doing this because I feel bad, I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do. Maybe I wasn't the best boyfriend, maybe we did have our issues. Maybe I did put my work first, maybe I didn't give him enough of my time or my affection or my esteem-but not enough for this. Not enough to deserve this." Erik's voice was thick, thick with emotion or tears or both and Hank didn't dare to interrupt because he had never seen the man like this, never anything but cool and reserved. "The badness I did, that was worth maybe a year, two tops. It was not worth eleven years of this shit! If all this was penance I'd have paid it up by now, do you get it? That is not what this is. I'm not keeping him here because I _feel bad_, I'm keeping him here because he's alive!"

"He's not," Hank murmured unconvincingly, put off his guard by this sudden openness.

Lensherr paused, taking a deep, calming breath, caressing his hand over Charles' hair, his cheek, his angular collar under the crisp hospital gown, as if for the strength to continue, biting his lip.

"They've never studied a telepath in a coma before-"

"Yes, they-"

"Never one as powerful as him. Never an Alpha. Maybe it's taken him a long time-a fucking long time-to find his way back, but he's in there somewhere. A telepath like that-he's in there somewhere. He just needs time to find his way back."

Hank shook his head. He knew his fair share about telepathy, with all the specialists they'd called in to consult, the heavy tomes Mr. Lensherr was constantly bringing him, not to mention the ones he searched out on his own, it was hard not to. He knew that telepaths, especially under duress, could get turned around, could move inwards and get lost within their own mind, a maze of memory and thought in its own right. But they'd had telepaths come in to try and draw him out of that maze before, they all said the same thing: sorry, can't find him. Don't see him. Are you sure he's a telepath? Were they sure it was the case of a powerful telepath, running in the wrong direction, going deeper and deeper, getting more and more lost-or was it simply the case of a human in a coma, stuck and immovable until the brain decided otherwise. Either way, it was a dead end. Either Charles was too deep for a telepath to find, deep as only a high-level Alpha, possibly, could go, or it was just another coma like a hundred other comas imprisoning humans and mutants alike, fixed, immovable, unchangeable from the outside. Hank struggled to explain what Erik didn't want to understand.

"Even if you waited a hundred years, Mr. Lensherr-that's just not how it works."

"How do you know?" Lensherr snapped, eyes wet but flashing. "How _can _you know?"

"If he was going to come back he'd have come back by now, Mr. Lensherr," he struggled to assure, touching the man's arm in an attempt at connection but Lensherr shook him off angrily. He watched as the man contained himself, wiping his eyes, tightening his mouth, squaring his shoulders. In another moment he was stoic and reserved once more, back in control.

"You don't know any more than I do what's going on with him, Mr. McCoy. Don't attempt to trick me into thinking you do, with your collection of framed genius. It's nothing more than bits of paper. You're not going to change my mind, and neither is Raven. She can think what she wants. For as long as I've got a say in it, Charles isn't going anywhere." Lensherr looked at him suddenly, smiling. "What do you have to complain about? We're paying our bills, aren't we? Consider it job security."

Hank shook his head, refusing to be played off.

"It's not going to be up to you forever, Mr. Lensherr. I know it's nothing to do with me. I know if you want to keep doing this or stop doing this it shouldn't affect me either way. But it does. You're not the only one tied up and tortured by this. If you don't like that I guess you'll just take him to another hospital where you don't have to deal with my opinions. That's up to you. But it's not going to go away. Raven won't let it, and you can't escape her as easily as me. She can't keep doing this, Mr. Lensherr. And she can't let you keep doing it either. I don't know what she has planned, but I know you're at the end of your rope. I just hope you've got a safety net for when it runs out."

Lensherr's smile turned softer, almost kind, which made Hank even more frightened. "I know you can't give me hope, Mr. McCoy. That's all right. I make my own, somehow or other. But you could do with some yourself, should you ever get around to it."


	7. Erik

Erik watched the steam rising off his hand on the side of the tub and then reached for his Scotch and downed the rest of it, feeling warm inside as well as out. Cold as it was outdoors that day, he hadn't been sure he'd ever get warm again. It seemed harder, lately, to get warm and stay warm. His doctor said it was because he was anemic, or underweight, Erik didn't remember which. Now the dual heat left him feeling light-headed. That was right, he hadn't eaten. Straight from work to the hospital to the gym. Keep busy, keep moving, don't think. Don't think about what today was. Don't think about twelve fucking years living like this, not even actually living but waiting. Don't think about Logan's phone number burning a hole in his phone.

_You're at the end of your rope._

He sighed, looking at his empty glass in the light, watched the prisms it cast out like a flamboyant searchlight, then set it down. He wasn't at the end of his rope, not yet, he knew. If it felt that McCoy was getting too above himself he could switch Charles to another hospital, one where the doctor wouldn't push so suicidally towards cutting off a good chunk of funding. If Raven was up to something, he could get around it. He was a damned good lawyer, after all. She could fight him all she wanted over Charles' power of attorney, but he wouldn't give it up. This was check, but not checkmate, he was sure of it.

_But_.

But it required so much energy, and he had so little left. When he expended all he had to hold on to Charles, how did they expect him to scrounge up the energy to fight them as well? Where was that energy supposed to come from? Where was he supposed to find it?

Taking a breath and holding it, he slipped below the water, let the warm liquid pool over his face. He couldn't call Logan. Not today. _Not today of all days_. But he _wanted_ him today of all days. The hardest of all the days. Wanted not him so specifically but _someone_-someone's skin on his, someone's mouth on his, someone looking at him and responding to him. Someone to forget himself in. Someone to fan the dwindling fire inside of him, to give him.

He looked up at his ceiling through the water and realized that if he took a breath right then and there it would all be over.

Jolting, he came up splashing and stood completely, head swimming, choking for breath. What was he thinking? he wondered as he wiped the water from his lashes. He couldn't leave Charles there, all alone in that hospital with no one to be there when he woke up. He couldn't leave the man to what Raven and McCoy had planned for him. Leave him there to die, to starve to death...god!

Drying off, he scrubbed over skin and bones-that seemed to be all there was of him anymore. How had he forgotten to eat? And after the talking to his doctor had given him just last week about losing too much weight. Even now, though, just thinking about eating felt like too much work. All that healthy food he'd been prescribed and the thought of even making a simple salad, even throwing a chunk of salmon in the oven, felt like climbing fucking Mount Everest. Much easier to just pour himself another drink.

Scrubbed dry, he pulled on his robe and a warm pair of slippers and did just that, spilling a little as he poured himself another glass. He'd left the music going and Billie Holiday was crooning quietly in the dark,

_Gloomy Sunday, my hours are slumberless,_

_Dearest, the shadows I live with are numberless._

"Turn it off," Charles would yawn, rubbing his eyes. "It's depressing me."

Erik thrilled momentarily, chasing the phantom, struggling to bolster the momentary concoction with imagination-Charles in the armchair-no, half-sprawled on the couch in his blue and gray pajamas-no, in Erik's green sweater, his checkered pajama bottoms.

It didn't work, the vision falling apart at the seams faster than Erik could build it. He was left alone in his apartment, Charles' voice fading in his ears like the whisper of a ghost. He could never recreate the man in this space, a place he'd never been to, never imprinted himself on. Erik had moved here after, to be closer to the hospital. Charles ruled now only in his memory and if he wanted to be with the man he'd have to travel there.

His phone was going off on the coffee table and he collapsed down onto the couch, checking it. Moira. He put it back, sipping his drink angrily, ice tapping against his lips. It wasn't fair of him, but he was pissed at her.

She called every year this day, and he loved talking to her, this day or any day. She was one of the few soft spots left in his life. Most of the people he had these days were hard edges and he felt scraped raw by their company, or flayed when it came to Raven. But Moira was soft cotton. She never accused him of being delusional or mental or selfish. She never claimed that Charles was in anything but the best of hands. Her presence, her conversation, was a breath of fresh air though his stifled mind, a balm to his wounds.

It made it all the more difficult, therefore, to ignore her call, a call he knew he'd enjoy so much, needed so much, especially this year. It wasn't even her fault. It wasn't fair or just or even decent for him to punish her in this way, withholding his company, when she probably needed his support as much as he needed hers today. It was a double anniversary for her: the day her best friend went into a coma, the day she got married-now the anniversary of a defunct marriage. As hard as this was on her, a divorce from a man she'd loved since freshman year, it felt like a personal affront to him. Charles had now been in a coma longer than Moira had been married.

Hallmarks like these always felt like a particularly foul blow. When Charles had slept through Raven's wedding, the birth of his nephews and niece. His mother's death. Erik making partner at the firm. Now Moira's entire marriage. That was just too huge a chunk to take lightly, and Erik wasn't taking it lightly. He was taking it with great revilement.

Was it any wonder, with all this added stress, that he was having difficulty resisting the call of Logan's phone number burning in his mind?

He finished his drink in one more gulp, his head swimming as he collapsed back on the couch, but alcohol itself wasn't going to be enough to keep him from calling Logan-telling him to come over, giving himself up to a mauling that numbed his mind from his troubles more than any other substance could manage.

"_No_," he growled audibly, loud enough for Dantes to wake up and stare at him.

_Not tonight. Not tonight of all nights._

His burning desire curdled into putrid tempid hatred for unruly black hair and a metal skeleton. _How dare he?_ How dare he come into Erik's life and make it harder for him? He'd been doing fine. Whenever he couldn't expel his desire by himself there were always lowlifes he could pay for the trouble. His disgust for the situation made it easier to put it off, made it easier to keep himself chaste. But with Logan...the disgust was overwhelming but not quite bad enough to keep him away, to keep him from finding pleasure in it, escape it, release in it.

All those faceless whores he'd thrown money at to please his body while his mind recoiled, how could he have known that they were a blessing compared to a real person, someone he saw as a real person? How could he have known that one night would turn into two would turn into twenty, would threaten to make him forget the way Charles' body moved against his, the way Charles groaned his name, the way Charles kissed him, breathless and in love.

Now he feared his nights with Logan as much as he needed them as much as he loathed them. The worst part was, despite everything, he knew he was going to give in. For the first time in his life there was something dangerous inside himself, something he couldn't excise or resist. In every other way he'd managed to stay pure, stay true to Charles as a monk stayed pure for God. But here, where it really mattered, he had no more control over himself than over a willful child, a toddler, with a sense for want but not ideals, not promises, certainly not restraint.

Erik didn't have the energy to fight that, not even the energy to scrounge up too much passionate hatred over it (he thrummed instead with nauseous disgust) but he could scrounge up the energy to put it off, and he would do that for as long as his energy could hold out. He had no idea how long that would be. And there was always one sure way to stave it off a little longer.

Erik had looked through reality so many times and for so long at a time that it had attained a thin, almost transparent feel to it, like a cloudy piece of glass that had been rubbed and rubbed and rubbed till it could be seen through. At the same time, his memories had been lived in so many times and for so long at a time that they had taken on a bright, iridescent gleam, like a stone polished into a jewel. By now he could slip into his memories like a well-tailored suit, while making dinner and ordering coffee was like wearing his father's gloves, ill-fitting fabric making fumbling fingers were once there had been dexterity.

It was in this way that he lie back, closed his eyes, throwing himself in opaque darkness; his mind took over, lighting up into a living theatre. Whatever he didn't remember himself was filled in with overabundant imagination. It was seamless at this point, a road in which every pothole had been patched over, artificial and smooth.

So when his eyes opened again, even though it was only in his mind, he saw it all, felt it all, heard it all. He skipped past the ceremony, gorgeous as it had been, with only a cursory glimpse of Moira at the altar, of Charles by her side, elegant and straight-backed in his tuxedo. He was her best friend, and she'd rather have him as her maid of honor than her new husband's skanky cousin, screw tradition. Erik had only seen it as a base collusion, Moira and Charles, working together on underhanded schemes to force him to propose. _Look how lovely he looks in a tuxedo, look how exciting weddings are-don't you want one too? Look look look, want want want._

Erik, at that age, hadn't. He was young and high-minded. He wanted the great, the remarkable things in life, and hadn't understood that love, loving someone fully and deeply, could be one of them.

So while everyone else was was oohing and ahing, Erik was sitting there seething. While everyone else was thinking how handsome Charles was, how good he'd look on their arm or in their bed, Erik was thinking that he was a scheming prick, an underhanded manipulator, who deserved everything Erik did to him.

Erik let the ceremony slip away, moved himself through time as he could only in his head, and when the fog lifted he could feel the wooden bar pressing into his back, his beer cold in his hand, and the waves of disappointment roiling off Charles at his side. He kept his eyes on the party, on the old couples shuffling on the dance floor, on the bridesmaids flirting with their dates by the ice sculpture, on Moira's posh parents hob-nobbing with the MacTaggerts.

Charles called the bartender over, ordered a whiskey, told him to leave the bottle, and Erik remembered being incensed by that. The man's father had died in a drunk driving accident, his own mother was a raging alcoholic, so how could he wallow in his own disgraceful drunkenness so flippantly? The rest of his emotions from that evening came back to him as well, a far-away tug that was not as real as the rest of his memory, removed as Erik felt from those emotions, supplanted as they had been by love and regret and suffering. It was only on the periphery that he knew he was angry too, angry beyond gracefulness-that Charles had dragged him here, that Charles had agreed to be in the wedding even though he knew Erik's feelings on the matter, that Charles was drinking to get back at him in the most base way possible, that Charles had the gall to be angry with him, to make him feel like he was the one at fault.

"You could have at least called me," Charles accused once the bartender had walked away again, downing a double right away. It was going to be a real Xavier kind of night.

"It was just the reception," he shrugged back, purposefully blase. He could practically taste the words in his mouth-they were stale and bitter. "I showed up to this travesty, didn't I?"

"Barely," Charles muttered.

At that Erik had finished off his own drink-underwhelming Sam Adams-and turned to put the glass on the bar, and that was the first he'd seen him up close-pale and angry, red lips compressed bitterly. He'd realized the man did look very handsome in his tuxedo and had railed at himself for falling into the trap Charles had designed for him. It just made him angrier.

He would have come up with something callous to say to the man, but Charles beat him to it, jerking to look at the band as they started on some new tune, glaring back at him, mouth held in a tight pout that Erik thought he'd probably inherited from his mother.

"Are you even going to ask me to dance?" the man growled, tossing down another whiskey and quickly pouring himself yet another. It took a lot of alcohol to overcome Charles' telepathy enough to actually feel drunk, but Erik thought he was rushing down the road to it, especially with all that champagne earlier. It pissed him off, and he got back at him by turning him down-passing up his chance, his last chance, to dance with the man.

"I don't think so," he'd yawned, making a show of checking his watch.

"Maybe I'll ask Jeremy," Charles had sneered meanly to get back at him, and Erik's eye had turned immediately towards Moira's new brother-in-law, a wickedly handsome younger man who looked as if he'd be more than happy to take Charles off his hands. Fury flared up immediately.

"You're so immature!" he'd hissed. Charles, too upset for his usual diplomacy, had flared back at him.

That was the only spark their tinder of a night had needed. Like one neglectful match in a full dry forest, everything had blazed out of control from there. They'd argued. Viciously. People were staring, Charles was embarrassed-that just made Erik more vituperous, feeling like he'd gain the upper hand through Charles' sensitive distaste for scenes. Charles retreated outside, controlled, refusing to be routed, and Erik had fought back by accusing him, loudly, of being drunk, stealing his set of car keys with his powers.

He wondered now what would have happened if he'd simply let Charles go. Let him cool off. Call a cab and see the man in the morning. Apologize; accept his apologies. The man wasn't that drunk. And surely any trouble he got himself into couldn't have compared with the trouble Erik had made for him. What would his life be like now if he'd changed that one little thing?

Erik huffed to himself at his own despicable rosy thinking. Even if things had gone differently that one night they would have gone much the same another night. Either way they'd be separated. He was insufferable then, and only the shock of that night had made him even consider changing. Charles deserved the best in life, and the best sort of love anyone could offer, and Erik had been above desiring to give him either, then, had looked down on it as childish, naive...

The argument had continued in the car, even though he knew early on it was making it difficult to drive. He'd argued viciously, with everything he could muster, and he'd fought to win, excited with the thought of winning, with the promise of it. He'd win and Charles would be so traumatized, so cowed by the pain of his defeat that he'd never have the heart to so much as glance at a wedding announcement ever again, for the rest of their lives.

"Maybe if I'd known you were just going to shove marriage down my throat all night I would have stood you up again! It would have been the least you deserve!" he shouted at Charles in the passenger seat.

"I wasn't shoving anything down your fucking throat! I invite you to our friend's wedding-that's shoving it down your throat?!"

"_Our_ friend! Ha! As if you two aren't constantly colluding against me! And looking at me the whole time! And when Moira's cousin asked you if you were going to go after the bouquet-you didn't tell her no!"

"It was a fucking joke! And so what if I did want to catch the bouquet? I want to get married-I've always wanted to get married! You've always known that!"

"Oh so I guess I'm just the dumb one again-I'm the idiot for thinking that this is something we need to agree on!"

"You _are_ an idiot," Charles shouted back viciously, eyes wet-drinking always made him more emotional; his next sentence proved it. "But-_god_!-not as big an idiot as I've been. No, you never lied to me, you never promised to marry me, but damn you if you didn't allow me to delude myself into thinking this mess had a happy ending!"

"Now it's my fault! Of course it is-everything is, isn't it?_ I'm the bad guy and you're the fucking saint!_"

"Get over yourself! Why don't you just be honest? Be honest with both of us! You don't want to commit to me because you're still waiting for something better to come along! Mutant rights and a law office of your own and putting your name down in history-that's more important than having me at your side! You think I can't see that?!"

"_Get out of my fucking head_," Erik growled dangerously back, grabbing Charles by his black tie. His imagination filled in the details-Charles' skin hot against his knuckles, his pulse fluttering hard, the scent of whiskey and anger.

"I wasn't," Charles gasped back through his hold, voice thick, eyes running over. "I didn't need to be. You're _that_ obvious."

Erik let him go, pushing him away roughly because he was pissed, rattling him against the window. He'd been infuriated that Charles had thrown down an unexpected ace and ruined his expectation of a quick win. He was a little hopeful though when Charles crumbled immediately, face in his hands. He took it as too much alcohol, the stress of exiting his best friend's wedding in a screaming match, the stress these arguments always took on them. He'd had to bite back a smile. Maybe that was enough to skew things in his favor despite Charles' sound arguments. He felt sick now at the memory.

"I'm done," Charles gasped, tilting his head back, tears shining on his cheeks. "I can't do this any more, Erik. We don't want the same things, you and I."

"Don't threaten me," he'd snarled back-he could still feel his heart, racing on adrenaline and the promise of winning, stumbling into a flutter of disbelieving panic.

There was a wet kind of chuckle, and Charles had turned to him, eyes wet and mouth open as if he were going to speak, and Erik didn't know if he was going to say that it wasn't a threat or if he was going to say he was sorry-finish it or concede, take the field and everything else in Erik's life or give it up. He didn't know.

Charles' eyes went wide. He had one anticipatory moment to say, "Ah!" and then there was nothing but blaring horn, blinding headlights, the shove of impact, the scream of metal on metal. There was the sickening feeling of his stomach flipping inside of him, his hands painful gripping the steering wheel, his eyes slamming shut against shattering glass.

It was impossible to tell how much time it took. It seemed simultaneously as if it had been a second and an eternity. Eventually the car stopped moving and Erik opened his eyes and saw that he was upside down. Saw that his airbag hadn't inflated, that his side of the car was pristine apart from the broken windows. Saw that he had hardly a scratch on him.

At the moment of impact he'd gone antimagnetic on pure instinct, a safe bubble repelling any metal that approached to hurt him. It had obviously interrupted the crash sensor in its duty, so even that hadn't lunged out at him. The only injury seemed to be a throbbing, empty feeling at the base of his skull, and some numb scrapes from the flying glass.

Laughing with surprise he relaxed his death grip on the steering wheel and pushed his tie out of his face, turned to share the joke with Charles.

It was only then that he realized what he'd done, that his reflexes had saved himself but not the man that meant as much to him as his self.

Raven said it was because he hadn't loved him, not enough, and he guessed she must be right or else what else explained it? He'd thought he'd loved Charles as much as he possibly could, but on that day he'd discovered hidden recesses to his heart he hadn't realized could be filled.

Charles had been rushed to the hospital and straight into surgery. There was a shattered hip, fractures in his pelvis, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, a ruptured kidney, and, the coup de grace, a fractured skull. And Erik had walked away with a bandaid and a headache.

Everyone had been hopeful-when the swelling goes down, when the drugs wear off, when he's stronger...Erik had been living twelve years on that first certainty of hope. Now people asked him how he did it, or if they didn't ask it then they wondered it, as if it were a miracle of endurance, or a telling sign of mental defect. He never knew what to say, and was glad that so many people kept their questions to themselves. All he knew was something too intense, too enmeshed deep inside himself to put into words: it was Charles' eyes, smiling and bright and not sad in the slightest, it was Charles' smile, erasing the defeated grimace of that night, it was the sound of his voice, soft and loving and overwhelming the memory of its thick timbre full of tears.

And the strange thing was he knew Charles wouldn't disappoint him, as much as he deserved to be disappointed, as much as he deserved to be haunted by his memory of that night, never to be effaced or replaced or conquered. Charles was always doing the right thing, even when it wasn't deserved, and Erik knew the man wouldn't prove him wrong just to be contrary. As soon as he didn't know that, as soon as he lost faith in Charles and his innate goodness, his mercy, then he'd give up-he'd take another bath and not stop himself that time, because who could live with nothing to live for?

But that day had not quite come yet.

So he opened his eyes, and he got up, and he shivered as he got into an empty bed, and he thought about visiting Charles tomorrow for the 4,383rd day.

* * *

Erik hadn't slept well. He'd had strange dreams. Or maybe it was just one dream. Wrenching, but not like his standard nightmares, where he went to Charles' hospital room but the man was missing and no one knew who he was talking about, or Charles woke up but it wasn't Charles, or, of course, Charles simply died, silently and nondescriptly. Instead, in this dream, he was lying down and he could hear the ocean, feel the sun on his skin, and when he opened his eyes Charles was smiling at him, blue eyes sparkling in the light and happy, mouth smiling, too-wide nose pink with the beginnings of sunburn.

He'd clutched the man instinctively, pulling him tightly to his chest and he could feel the sun-heated skin against his own, and Charles' hair-not soft like one would think in a fantasy-but thickened with saltwater and coarse and realistic for it.

"I miss you-I miss you," he'd mumbled, crying painfully.

He'd woken himself up crying, his arms empty and cold.

Now he had a headache, just at the base of his skull, full and pulsing like an infected wound, and he forgot to pick up the flowers from the florist and it was too late to drive all the way back so he ended up stopping at a grocery store, rubbing his gritty eyes in the harsh fluorescents. They didn't have much of a selection and he wondered if he shouldn't just skip it. But no. The roses he'd gotten Charles were dropping their petals already-blue, because he couldn't stand red roses: they'd had red roses at his parents funeral-and the stench of them was already overwhelming, like a funeral parlor.

A strikingly bright orange bunch of flowers caught his eye and he fingered the tiny petals with nominal interest. Pretty enough. He checked the tag quickly: butterfly weed. He grabbed a couple bundles of them and turned to go. It wouldn't be his usual flamboyant mixture, but flowers were flowers and after his night not much more could be expected of him.

Stepping towards the cashiers though, he was immediately distracted. A huge bouquet of delicately soft white-pink flowers stood on their own in a little black receptacle. Instead of the small typed tag someone had drawn them a little placard, a white board of paper with 'peonies' written in pretty pink cursive. memory hit him swiftly, fresh and natural, free of the anti-septic polish of overuse, uninfiltrated by imagination, missing in places and imperfectly perfect for it.

They were lying on their bed, or maybe this was back when they didn't live together and it was only one of their beds at that time. The light was streaming through the window and they were exhausted because of something and lay napping in the sun's warmth, curled and tangled up together in a way that made him realize how young they must have been. Charles, sleepy and murmuring was fingering a big bouquet of flowers, pale pink and bloody red, full and frail and beautiful that Erik didn't remember. where or why he'd gotten: "When I get married, I'm going to have nothing but peonies." Erik was, for once, too tired to argue, or maybe this was before he'd even formed an opinion on marriage. He'd simply hummed complacently and kissed Charles' shoulder.

Smiling faintly, Erik closed his eyes a moment, letting the dull pain in his head ebb away. He dropped the vibrant orange flowers drop into a bucket and grabbed up the pack of pale peonies, enjoying their comforting fragrance as he walked them to the counter.

In the car he switched to the oldies station and his favorite song was playing, was just starting, and his mood improved further.

_It's been a long, a long time comin'_

_But I know a change gonna come_

Somehow, he found himself smiling yet again on what had been such a dour morning. Well so what? What was one more anniversary, one more day? It also meant he was one year, one day closer to the end of it all. Closer to the day when Charles would wake up and make this momentary happiness he felt last, last forever.

He was whistling by time he arrived in the hospital. He remembered that even McCoy would know not to try to talk to him today of all days, and that thought made him happy, not having to deal with the man's accusations or arguments today. He chatted quickly with Carlotta and was introduced to Angel's replacement now that she was on maternity leave, a lanky boy with a beakish nose and white feathers sticking out of his pink scrubs. He'd have to spend some time in charming the guy when he got a chance-Angel would be gone for months and Charles' care would fall into this boy's hands more often than not. Erik knew that a certain amount of amicability would ensure that Charles got all the extra attention Erik needed him to have.

The man was just as he'd left him, and before Erik dealt with the closed blinds or the cloying roses he said hello, finger-combing Charles' over-long hair, caressing his ghostly white brow.

"You need a nice long day at the beach, sweetheart," he informed, and kissed the man softly on his warm cheek. He pulled back in some surprise. Charles never seemed warm enough in this room, skin always a degree too cool. It was refreshing to feel him warm for once. He checked his chart quickly but no fever was mentioned.

Erik smiled happily. Well. Maybe year twelve wouldn't be so bad. Maybe this was a sign.

He replaced the old flowers, inhaling the peony's fresh, soft scent fully and burying the roses in the trashcan in the bathroom. Outdoors it was cloudy and dismal but there was still plenty of light to let in, immediately brightening the place to something more cheerful than a crypt.

"We're down to the last chapter of_ The Count of Monte Cristo_. I know you say the ending is the best part, but I've got to restate that this book has no point once Dantes starts forgiving everyone. This is supposed to be the best revenge story in the world! Why is the whole last quarter all about giving up revenge? But I won't push my love of justice on you-I know you crave your rehabilitation stories. It'll be _Jane Eyre_ again next, I presume. No, wait, nevermind, _Pride and Prejudice_. _A Tale of Two Cities_? Oh, that might still be too depressing for you. Am I right?"

He paused for a response he didn't expect, and took out the big paperback copy Charles had gotten him for Valentine's day in college, brushing the pressed flowers Charles used to use as bookmarks, a pretty little bunch of papered purple and yellow violets, taking a seat in the chair at the foot of Charles' bed.

"October the Seventh," he began softly, rubbing the fullness at the base of his skull, thinking of taking some more Tylenol. His mind wandered as he read, thinking of the next book he'd pick. Had they already read Cold Mountain? Erik was looking forward to that non-fiction book about the Mutant Internment Camp in China but Charles couldn't stand books like that. He'd liked his depressing texts to come in newspaper articles or magazine blurbs so he wouldn't have to spend so much time being utterly depressed. He did much better with _Persuasion_ or _White Fang_. Maybe they'd read that-he hadn't read White Fang in years and it had always been one of their mutual favorites. Oh but at the same time he still hadn't read _Memoirs of a Geisha_ to the man, having opted for _The Time Traveler's Wife_ instead. Well, he'd do a blind pick he guessed. Coin tosses never went too well for him in terms of surprises.

Charles would always poke fun.

"What do you think? Green or blue?" he'd asked breathlessly, picking out a tie for his big interview with the Mutant Protection League.

"Hmm," Charles had mused, looking up from his class reading. "Why don't you flip a coin?"

He breathed in deeply, the peonies slowly overcoming the reek of old roses, and smiled, pushing his hair back from his brow as he continued to read. Twelve years and one day, and so what? What made it any different than any other day? There was still flowers and reading, combing hair and drawing curtains, and memories-everywhere memories. Charles had been silent for twelve years and one day but in his memories he was still bright and vibrant, soft and murmuring, loving and worth every hardship. It was the same as any other day, except that this was one day closer.

His voice stumbled and he paused, looking at what he'd just read, breath catching in his throat and he smiled as he started over and read it again.

" '_So_,'" he murmured Edmond's words carefully. " _'Do live and be happy, children dear to my heart, and never forget that, until the day what God deigns to unveil the future to mankind, all human wisdom is contained in these two words: "wait" and "hope_"!'"

"Huh," he muttered to himself, caressing his hand over the page, at where Charles had long ago underlined the sentence. "Wait and hope, hmm? Well, why stop now?"

Laughing, he looked up at Charles, to let him in on the joke, glad that McCoy wasn't there to grit his teeth over it.

And Charles was looking back at him.


	8. -Hank-

A/N: To avoid confusion: Parts 1 and 2 of this chapter occur almost concurrently (same days, different times) as parts 1 and 2 of Erik's chapter. In other news, this chapter proves my minimal medical knowledge. No amount of research seems to be able to ameliorate this. Anything lacking or weird or dumb in this chapter speaks less about the awesomeness of Wikipedia and more about my own cursed hand at specifics.

* * *

Hank drummed his fingernails on the desk and stared at the door, wondering if he should go now-but he refused to think about _where _he wanted to go.

Anita had left hours ago, with a chipper "Have a great weekend, Dr. McCoy! Don't work too hard!" and he'd strangled out a reply, hands sweating under his desk. He was still sweating now, skin damp and chilled under his white jacket yet he didn't take it off.

He was sure he hadn't waited long enough, or maybe he was just nervous and couldn't bring himself to face it yet. In any case, he turned to his computer and tried to think of something to do to keep him busy a little longer. He could look at the spreadsheets, maybe read the report from Shanghai, or study up on the CCR5-Δ32gene Dr. Gorey had been chatting about the other day.

But instead he found himself going into his email yet again, as if Raven might have written him in the last hour. He didn't even know why he wanted a message so badly, especially today-it wasn't like this was his anniversary, as if this day meant anything to him. This might be the day Charles had gone into a coma, but Hank had probably been studying and jotting notes in his textbook this time twelve years ago. There was no reason for him to want a little friendly word on this day, unless it was to clarify, explain, illuminate what Raven had said in her last letter. To answer the question he didn't want to ask.

As if he could suddenly garner that from one more rereading, he went to the message Raven had sent him a few days back and devoured it all over again. He'd read it more than once since it arrived, had practically memorized it, but he read it again regardless, as if this time would bring new understanding, the justification for what he was considering.

_Hey Hank,_

_Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. We're planning a trip to the inlaws and it's got us pretty busy. As such, I'll be out of touch for a few days or so. Don't worry-I haven't died. Well, maybe I have-it IS New Mexico after all._

_I did talk to that lawyer you put me in touch with... but I'm not sure if he'll take the case (he seemed a bit anxious when he found out it was THE Erik Lensherr-ugh!). Honestly, I don't even care. I think I gave up on finding a legal way to end this years ago. It would just drag it on even longer when all I want is for it to be OVER. You know what I mean. I think Erik's the only one who doesn't dream of the day this is all over. But he's got to come around. After twelve years of this, he's got to be coming around, right? We've got to make him. Help him take the leap. You agree don't you? If he won't let go on his own we've got to HELP him. You've got to be cruel to be kind! Our mother used to say that, but I never believed her, never understood her till now._

The letter went on. He and Raven tended to run on with one another since there weren't many other people they could share this kind of talk with. Hank didn't always like it. Every time he hit send he was overcome with terror that he'd sent it to the wrong person, to _Lensherr_, that Lensherr would know-or that Raven had lost her sympathy, her camaraderie with him, and would be upset by his uninhibited speech. It was why it always took him so long to reply. He wondered if Raven really had the same excuse for her usually tardy responses.

But he wasn't ashamed of her letter, and he didn't look down upon her camaraderie. In fact, he drew courage from it.

Standing, he wiped his palms on his doctor's jacket, straightened it, and escaped out to the stairwell. Although there was no one else around, Hank walked quickly and very quietly, his feet aching in his over-tight shoes, wincing at the resounding acoustics in the cement tower. Slipping downstairs he took his badge and a deep breath, swiping the plastic to open the door.

He poked his head out onto the fifth floor, and held his breath, listening. Somewhere at the other end of the hall was a heavy hacking cough, but it subsided soon, leaving heavy silence in its wake. Slowly, with precision and control, Hank stepped down the hallway, silently but not suspiciously.

The light was off in Charles' room and Hank didn't turn it on. He had very good eyesight, and could manage better than most humans in the dark. He could see Charles' nearly luminous white skin in the faint light from his monitoring equipment. The room was gloomy, and very still, like a wake. But in the silence he could make out Charles' gentle breathing, and approached closer, standing at the man's bedside and staring down at him.

He hadn't spent much time with Charles-he could get most of the information from the files and from the nurses-and when he had it was always with someone, a nurse, or Lensherr himself. He felt nervous, and yet relaxed in his nervousness. Like attempting to learn a new and embarrassing game, but being able to practice in absolute privacy. He relaxed into his chance to sit with the man with no one watching him, judging him, anticipating him.

He didn't know what Charles had looked like before, apart from his driver's licence, a photocopy of which was in his file. He couldn't really remember the photo though, maybe because it seemed like his patient was so removed from that young man with a bright energetic smile and sparkling blue eyes. Hank wasn't there to help that man, he was to help this one, with the pale, cool brow, the thin, motionless face, incapable of cheerful smiles or mischievous gleaming eyes.

Now he wondered if he was even there for that. Charles, in all his permutations, was beyond his help. But was Raven? Was Lensherr? Raven wanted, needed, an easy way out, and Lensherr needed it even more-if he _could _give it to them, then shouldn't he? Wasn't that a moral imperative? He was a doctor to save people. Wasn't it basic triage to sacrifice Charles to save two other, to save countless others, himself included, who were sinking with this ship?

His hand was shaking as he put it out to Charles' mouth. It didn't quite make it, catching on the collar of his cardigan. It was wool, and just this side of scratchy. Hank was surprised. He thought Lensherr of all people would have the man dressed in cashmere, or something equally comfortable and useless.

His fingers twitched upwards, against Charles' throat, his jaw. The man didn't move in the slightest, and Hank didn't expect him to. He was only slightly warmer than a corpse, but otherwise the similarities were striking. Hank would be afraid to sit alone with him in the dark if he believed in ghosts or the like. As it was he felt his thumping heart, his cold, sick sweat.

_You're a doctor. You're a doctor. It's all right. You're a doctor._

His hand slipped up higher and closed over Charles' mouth.

He could feel Charles' breath hot and puffing from his nostrils, emblazoned on his hand, feel his soft lips under his palm, and the hard edges of his teeth under that.

It took him a moment to move past that, gasping, and trembling with terror. Could he do it? If Charles were on a machine he would have no trouble pulling the plug, breaking the machine. Was this really different? He tried to tell himself it wasn't, and maybe philosophically it wasn't. Either way Charles was simply a mass of cells that needed to be put out to pasture. He knew it was the right thing: Charles wouldn't know the difference so he didn't have to worry about the man's quality of life. All that mattered was Raven's, was even _Lensherr's _quality of life. And both would be better off, eventually, with Charles finally put to rest.

If it were a ghost haunting the two no one would think any worse of him for exorcising it, and was this really so different? Charles was nothing more than a ghost that had never been buried.

He put his other hand up, but couldn't manage to hit that target either, holding his hand to Charles' chest instead under the heavy duvet Erik had dragged in "to keep him warm"-as if he could feel warmth where he was, or cold, or pain, or vigil.

He couldn't really feel the heartbeat through the blanket, but he could feel Charles' breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, like an animal-a bird maybe, grasped in hands that were deciding whether or not to squeeze.

He moved his hand up to Charles' face, took a breath, and closed his hand over the man's nose. Hank kept his eyes squeezed shut.

_Just a little while and it'll be over. It'll be over. It'll be over._

But Charles tossed his head under his hands, and Hank fell back immediately, collapsing off his trembling legs directly to the floor, shaking and shivering and panting for breath.

_Raskolnikov you're not, _he thought to himself: put off by nothing more than a reflexive response from a mindless vegetable. He couldn't even do this one little useful, helpful thing. He couldn't cure Charles and he couldn't get rid of him. He couldn't make this easier on Raven, he couldn't put Lensherr out of his misery.

Without a thought to being caught out, he turned and sprinted back to his office, where he threw up in his waste basket and fell asleep sobbing on his desk.

* * *

Hank's beeper went off and woke him up in a panic, falling out of his chair trying to situate himself, papers flying everywhere and not helping at all. Before he could even see who was beeping him, Anita flew in, bouncing his door off the wall with a bang that startled him all the more.

"Dr. McCoy! Dr. McCoy!" she shrieked until he caught the edge of his desk and propped himself up. Hands clutched together over her massive breasts, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Dr. McCoy-it's a miracle!"

"What? What are you talking about?" he yelped, grabbing his beeper. It was the nurses station on the 5th floor. That could only mean one thing. Anita only confirmed this.

"It's Charles!" she sobbed, and Hank was already out the door, stumbling on trembling legs.

What was it now? His mind raced. Maybe Charles had given out, something sudden and irreparable-a heart attack? Aneurysm? Maybe it was something that they hadn't caught. Hidden cancer or tumor. Sepsis. Appendicitis. A creeping pneumonia. Organ failure. Anita had said it was a miracle, after all, and what was more miraculous than fate taking this out of his hands?

Hank tried to tamp the rush of elation that burst inside of him at this-the thought that it could all be taken care of quietly and easily, without him having to do anything except not try too hard to reverse it. Raven wouldn't have to go through the trauma of bringing Lensherr to court, there wouldn't be the anxiety about Lensherr out-maneuvering them, Hank wouldn't have to technically murder anything; it would all be done with, finished, settled.

He'd have to call Raven in New Mexico. He wondered if they'd let him study Charles' brain for science, figure out the effects of such a long ordeal on such a powerful telepath. Maybe, like a lot of things in his life, the answers that had been obscure to the naked eye would be more visible when seen under a microscope.

The elevator let him out in a madhouse, the phone ringing off the hook at the nurse's desk but no one there to answer it as everyone on the floor appeared to be streaming to Charles' room.

Hank rushed in alongside some male nurse he didn't recognize and both of them were too excitable to even speak to one another. It would have been hard to hear one another over the hysterical noises coming from 557 anyway.

"_Give him some room! Let him breathe!" _someone was crying.

The nurse tried to go through the door at the same time as him and Hank mustered up a scowl that scared the man off, pushing through the door himself and struggling to see through the riot of people in the room that packed the place from wall to wall.

"What the heck is going on in here?! What are you all doing in here?" he shouted. How were they supposed to manage the crash cart with so many random people.

"Oh Dr. McCoy!" a woman keened at him, hugging him tightly around the waist, and he realized it was Nurse Jackson, from the pediatrics nursing station, whom he'd never exchanged two words with. What was she doing there? What were all these people do in here? Now that he'd overcome his shock, he realized there were too many for a crash scenario, and they were all too happy. What the hell was happening?

"Take a deep breath!" someone demanded but he couldn't make out who. Gritting his teeth, he shoved a path to Charles' bed leaving a swath of yelping nurses but finally getting a view of his patient-the man was lying just as he'd last seen him (_last night last night_) and there didn't seem to be any sign of seizure or death. But his eyes were open-huge and blue like Hank had never expected somehow.

_That's all this is? _he wondered.

Coma patients sometimes opened their eyes after all. It was no big thing. Sometimes their eyelids even had to be taped shut. Charles had never really followed this trend, but was it worth all this hubbub now that he apparently had?

But then-the shaggy brown head turned towards Hank, the blue eyes looking him over with serene interest and curiosity, and his mind seemed to blaze out in a blinding white light.

"Can you believe it, Dr. McCoy?" Anita sobbed behind him, and he realized she'd followed him down here. "It is a miracle. Oh god..."

Her words broke through the blaring ringing in his ears, the shivering disbelief inside his brain. _A miracle. A miracle._ He couldn't seem to get past that word, couldn't seem to process it. Charles-_was_ that Charles? It couldn't be. It _couldn't _be. Charles was dead. Charles had been given to him a broken toy years go, so how could he even think he was seeing something whole and conscious?

He couldn't, not at all, and while he stood there struck dumb and breathless, something within him welled up and wrenched control out of his blind confusion.

"Everyone out," he whispered, and had to repeat himself a few times, up to a violent shout, before everyone was shocked enough at his behavior enough to listen to him. The cleared view revealed Charles, propped up in his bed and wide-eyed with confusion or fear-and Erik, clutching Nurse LeRoux at the side of the bed and sobbing, mumbling painfully, "Can I believe it? Am I dreaming? Can I...?"

LeRoux gave him a vicious glare over Erik's quaking head, warning him against trying to toss her out with the rest. He recoiled slightly and turned to Charles. That helpless part of him quailed, trembled with the terror of facing this man, this reanimated corpse, this ghost of a person he'd given up for dead, had been _positive _was dead, and not even just recently but for _years_. He struggled to ignore Erik's soft, breathless crying, and indeed didn't even have the braincells left to process it fully as he'd never seen the man shed a tear before and today was a day of too many firsts already.

Charles stared up at him, at his wrinkled white jacket, at his emblazoned badge, at his sterling countenance. He was a doctor and Charles needed a doctor and he owed the man this much, more than this much: to be official, strong, supportive.

"Mr. Xavier," he began softly, approaching closer. "I'm Doctor McCoy. I'm your doctor. You're at St. Rita's Hospital. Please, blink once if you can understand me."

"What did you call me?" Charles asked instead, mouth pursing around each vowel carefully, and Hank about fell over backwards into Anita, still standing and trembling excitedly behind him.

It was bad enough for Charles to be awake and blinking at him so intelligently, that was a debilitating shock on its own. But this was almost unbearably strange. Only that shining image within himself kept him from running from the room and hiding in a bathroom until it all just went away. Within him was the image of a Doctor. And a doctor would not shrink from this. He wouldn't think that he should have more time-that Charles was supposed to be beyond the realm of speech for long enough for him to prepare to hear him speak, was supposed to be silent and safe until Hank knew what to do with him. In all the information on coma patients that did wake up, after all, it clearly stated the standard schedule of this return to consciousness, and even with individual differences there was supposed to be one overreaching standard: time. This was supposed to take _time_. Blinking and then moving and then maybe a little bit of mumbling but nothing hank would have to react to seriously.

"Charles," Lensherr gasped, staring at him from LeRoux's grasp, letting her relax him into the chair by Charles' bed. Hank wondered why he'd said it: just to say it and have Charles react to it, or from his own disbelief of who this really was...Maybe he didn't have a plan, maybe he didn't even realize he'd spoken. Rocketing emotions seemed to have shell-shocked him into concussed awe-his stare, his slack, trembling mouth, his lax, spent body-Hank wasn't sure if was looking at a man or a puppet with all the strings cut, a robot that had short-circuited.

Either way, Charles turned to his voice, eyes wide, and then squintingly discerning.

"...E-Erik? I suppose you do rather look like you," he muttered, and then stared at his hands sitting his lap, eyes wide and scared. "So...this is...this is _my _body?"

Hank gulped and struggled to speak past the choking feeling in his throat.

"Mr. Xavier, you've been in an accident," he coughed, forcing himself to stand sturdily again. He wasn't sure if Charles was listening. The man was staring at his flexing hands, fingers spread on his thighs, brows furrowed. Hank glanced at Lensherr, wondering where to go from there, but he was looking at Charles, tears flowing freely but silently, one at a time. His eyes were red-rimmed and raw, his angular cheeks shining with dampness. Hank had to look away.

"Do you remember...?"

Charles glanced up at him, struggling to think for a moment. "Remember? I remember Moira walking down the aisle and...and dancing and..." He closed his eyes a second, tensing with frustration. "And then...sleeping."

He shook his head again, frowning at his nails. "Just sleeping."

Relaxing into futility, Charles glared and started chewing on his thumb nail.

"Gng," Erik grunted and reached out as if to stop him, the way he'd stop anyone else from messing with Charles..

The man jerked back from his stilted hand in surprise and, eyes narrowing, peeled off the edge of his nail. LeRoux made a disapproving, clucking noise, but Hank quieted her with a glance so they could continue. Anita had moved to their side of the bed and was holding LeRoux by the shoulders comfortingly.

Before Hank could think of how to word what he had to tell (how did you explain to someone they'd lost 12 years of their life? That everything had changed, that Charles did not seem to feel the amount of time that had really passed), Charles was chewing the raw edge of his nail and speaking around it.

"When will the drugs wear off? I'll remember more when the drugs wear off."

Hank and Lensherr exchanged a confused glance that was not lost on Charles. He reacted with tense alarm.

"The Tetra-B-you _do _have me on Tetra-B, don't you?"

Hank knew about Tetra-B, or tetraphenyldichrine-B. It's brand name was Antitel but almost no one called it that. It wasn't used much by the public-no point in it. Doctors, surgeons, used it on high-level mutants to subvert their mutations during operations. You didn't want a mutant like Lensherr, for example, taking exception at a scalpel coming at him and striking out on reflex, instinct, subconcious preservation. But Tetra-B was notoriously unpredictable. It could take hours to wear off or it could take days, months. Most mutants, especially high-level ones, didn't like to have their powers out for that long, especially when doctors couldn't pinpoint how long. Almost no one used Tetra-B these days. Weaker mutants got Phendoxy or Atatin. More powerful ones got Phendoxy and Narynta together. Hank had never once used Tetra-B in his whole career.

"No, you're not on Tetra-B," he murmured. If Charles was asking about it then it had to mean there was something going on with his telepathy. Was it from the skull fracture? Was this simply the effect a coma had on a telepath? Or could it even be spontaneous degeneration on top of everything else, the way some mutants suddenly lost their potency, sometimes their manifestation completely, in older age?

"He had been," said Erik thickly, breaking him from his reverie. "When he first came in they gave him Tetra-B. For the surgeries. All his surgeries, I think..."

Hank stared back. That couldn't be right. Charles had had multiple surgeries within his first few days of being admitted. Surely they would have just given him Tetra-B for the first one and then gotten him tested with a telepath to see if it had worn off before his next surgeries.

He didn't mention this. He'd have to check the files...

"Surgeries?" Charles balked. "What surgeries?" The man's hands roamed vaguely over his torso like white doves, apparently not finding anything amiss.

Hank wiped his hands on his wrinkled slacks. He'd just have to come out with it apparently.

"After the accident you were first admitted to Riverside. You were there for a couple of weeks, and had numerous surgeries. Hip replacement...they had to patch up your kidney...you had a couple of surgeries for a skull fracture."

"That's not possible. You must be mistaken," Charles laughed weakly, touching a hand to his skull. "Moira's wedding was just _yesterday_."

"Charles," Erik gasped. "Charles, Moira was married twelve years ago. You've been in a coma. You've been asleep for twelve years."

Charles turned on him angrily, mouth set in what was obviously gearing up for a snarl, but he stopped before he started, slipping into a wide-eyed glance that seemed to take Erik in fully for the first time: his gaunt face, his silver streaks, his care-worn lines and burgeoning wrinkles.

"My god, you're _not _joking, are you?" he whispered. Erik didn't seem to know if he wanted to laugh or sob as he shook his head quietly, hand clutched over his mouth.

"How is this possible?" Charles continued, panting slightly. "I'm twenty-six. I'm in grad school. My dissertation is due next month. It's going to revolutionize the field of evolutionary genetics. I'm _twenty-six_."

Hank couldn't speak to the genetics-he hadn't even known Charles was in school for the sciences-but he could address the rest. "You'll be thirty-nine in April, and I'm afraid your dissertation is long overdue."

Charles looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to draw meaning from his image, from his words. Hank wasn't sure if it had worked. The man simply melted back into his pillows, eyes fixed on the ceiling and mouth compressed tightly. Erik moved his hand onto the bed, just shy of Charles' hip, like quietly tossing someone a life ring, neither wanting them to slip under the water nor wanting to accuse them of needing rescue.

Charles shifted his own hands to fold across his stomach, determined to stay afloat on his own.


	9. -Raven-

She was rushing, had been rushing for hours, even when sitting perfectly in place on the airplane, in the taxi, and yet she couldn't help but feel through the numb light and white noise that her brain had somehow been left behind in LA, was still motionless there in front of Azazel struggling to process what he was telling her.

She had to say, it had been done tactlessly, at the worst possible moment. Visiting Azazel's mother in New Mexico for a full week, wrangling three kids on her own under terrible scrutiny with no partner to even assist her because Az had had to stay and work suddenly and conveniently, having to take the kids on a goddamned plane because Az's Transportation Permit was from Chimayo to LA, and there was no time to apply for one to get him to his mother's house to Transport them. Despite the usefulness of Az's mutation, he might as well be human for as many hoops the Mutation Control Bureau made him jump through to use it. A week with her mother in law, functioning for all intents and purposes as a single mother for the week, then taking three squawking kids on their first airplane-by time they reached LA she was as run down as she could remember being in fucking years. She'd had no brain cells left to take in what Az had tried to explain to her at baggage claim-_your flight leaves in forty minutes, I'll come as soon as I can, here's your ticket, go go go!_

She couldn't even remember what she'd said, something about how she'd just gotten off the plane and was he crazy, she was sure, but the memory was foggy and unsure. Only one thing rang clear, and had been ringing in her ears for hours now, muting everything out, before and after.

"_It's Charles, Raven. He's...he's awake."_

She didn't remember the security line, or sprinting to the plane, or sitting impatiently for hours waiting for them to land again. She didn't remember that, and the next day she probably wouldn't remember the taxi ride, or stopping at Check-In. In her mind was only a cold bright light-her brother, and awake, and whatever that would mean.

She'd waited for this day for a long time, and had imagined it fully more than was healthy, but those daydreams were a long time past, dusty and arthritic with retirement. Now it seemed as if she had forgotten what she was supposed to do, how she was supposed to feel. Her body rushed her forward on autopilot while her mind was on standby, waiting for some spark to ignite her again, wake her up, put her back on an emotional track she remember how to navigate.

"Have you heard anything?" she blurted suddenly at the check-in girl, the tiny tentacled mutant with the big eyes.

"Excuse me?" the girl chirped as she wrapped Raven's ID bracelet around her wrist.

"About my brother," Raven insisted breathlessly, glancing upstairs.

"Your...brother?" tentacle-girl repeated back, more slowly, delicate little brows coming together over her huge clear eyes.

Raven just huffed a disgusted breath and tromped on to the elevators, duffel bag digging into her shoulder, dragging her down.

Sounds and colors and thoughts were slowly leaking through the fog back to her, the dings of the elevator, the bright lights of buttons and numbers slowly making sense, and _dread_. The first emotion to come creeping back and it wasn't excitement or ecstasy or anything else she'd expected, but dread.

_What was Charles going to think?_

She felt like a little child whose parents had suddenly gotten home after an eternity of freewheeling misbehavior-the piper had suddenly arrived to be paid, and she had been doing as she pleased for years trusting wholeheartedly that this day would never, ever come.

Despite the horror flooding her mind, her body moved inexorably forward, independent of her panic. All too soon she was at Charles' door, mind not even granted the pause for a deep breath before her body flung the thing open automatically.

Only then did her body seem shocked enough to link it back up with her brain, the two halves shoved together out of mutual confusion.

Erik was seated at Charles' bedside, same as ever, holding the man's hand above the covers, staring at him just as obsessively as he was wont to, but the one thing that was supposed to have changed hadn't.

"Raven!" Erik exclaimed, but his voice seemed far away and dim.

Charles lay in the hospital bed, his eyes closed, his face as distant and immovable as ever. Nothing had changed. Her desire to sob overwhelmed her for a moment before she got a hold of it, her terror taking over instead as she stared at Erik, his beaming energetic smile, his wide happy eyes, looking younger than she ever remembered seeing him.

He'd snapped.

It had finally happened. Erik had gone completely fucking batshit crazy, dragging into reality what had been happening in his dreams undoubtedly-imagining that Charles was awake after all this time. She steeled herself for what she was going to have to do: she'd have to get him committed. She'd have to go to Hank and figure out how to go through this process-how to get a grown man fitted for a straightjacket right away.

Erik apparently read this all off her immediately, raising his hands peaceably, gasping, "Wait, Raven-no! Look, he's just sleeping, Raven-he's just sleeping!"

He ran over to drag her closer and she stumbled forward, pulling out of his hands with a snarl. To drag her all the way across the country for a mental breakdown-and now she'd have to get Azazel involved too and Hank and it would be a whole hornet's nest of complication. At least it would make it easier to take power of attorney away from him, she tried to appease herself.

Erik was careful not to touch her.

"Just look, just look-" he begged, reaching around her and chaffing Charles' hand delicately above his IV. "Charles-Charles wake up for a second-Charles."

Raven's eyes prickled with tears. God. That Erik of all people could be reduced to this, a man who had always been so uncompromisingly intelligent, ruthless, powerful. Had she done this? By pushing him too far towards release, by trying to force him to let go? Had she destroyed what she hadn't known was a delicate psyche?

"Mmmm?" someone groaned and she looked at Erik disbelievingly. What was he doing?

"Charles," he murmured again, eyes bright and wide-demented, utterly fucking demented.

"Whut?" came the mumbled reply, but Erik's mouth wasn't moving. The man was smiling too hugely to manage that-he glanced at Raven excitedly, eyes damp and luminously gray-green-blue like the metal of a gun.

Slowly, she turned to the figure in the bed. And dropped down into the chair Erik pulled under her just in time.

Charles' brows were knit and he blinked heavily away from the light of the window, turning away.

Erik was gone from beside her and there was the rustle of curtains and the room turned dim, enough for Charles to look at her, eyes so open and so blue. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Charles beat her to it.

"Raven?" he balked, blinking hard and then blushing, looking everywhere but at her. "Wh-where are your clothes? Put...put some clothes on..."

* * *

"You don't have to look so Aryan on my account," Charles assured, stroking back the golden curls splayed out on his pillows as Raven wiped the last of her hysterical tears away on his bony shoulder. "I just don't agree with _some people_ that you're akin to a wild animal that needn't concern herself with something so dignified as clothing..."

"Hey," Erik laughed, holding up white flag hands from his seat at the foot of the bed. "In my defense I said _tigress_, not _wild animal_."

"I fail to see the difference," Charles replied stonily, fingers tightening painfully in her hair.

_There, _she winced, catching on what had been niggling under her skin for the last few minutes as her tears calmed and she could comprehend her surroundings.

Something was going on between Charles and Erik, something off, something that tasted terribly of college and drunken fights and hurt feelings. What had happened? Surely Charles hadn't been awake long enough for them to have a fight...

Erik just laughed, a sharp amused noise, as if even Charles being bitchy was a joyous turn of events. She guessed it was, comparatively.

"Well, I should go tell Hank you're awake. I know he wanted Dr. Morel to take a look at you when you were conscious."

"Is that the telepath?" Charles asked, hopeful.

"No, the physical therapist."

"What do you need a telepath for?"

"My telepathy is...acting up," Charles grumbled evasively.

"It's like any other muscle," Erik assured confidently. "It'll get stronger with exercise."

"You hope," Charles accused and turned away.

The silence that followed terrified her, so she jumped up immediately to dispel it.

"I'll tidy up," she exclaimed, fixing the blankets over her brother, beaming as it shocked him out of his snit.

"_You_? I wasn't aware you knew how."

"Yeah well you've been out of the loop for a while," she teased back, ruffling his hair.

"Hell has apparently frozen over while I've been away," he laughed, pushing her hand away.

She didn't realize Erik had left until she heard the door shut gently behind him. Charles was pulling her closer before she'd even turned around again, his grip as frail as a toddler's but still adamant.

"Raven," he whispered, voice low and serious. "I'm so glad you're here."

She smiled back, on the verge of tears again. "Oh, Charles-I'm glad I'm here too. I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner."

Her brother just shook his head, stalling her apologies, drawing her back to her seat beside his hips, eyes bright but somehow frantic-not quite as calm as he'd seemed just a moment ago.

"Now that you're here, _he _needn't be."

"He?"

"Erik. I can't say I don't need anyone here. This is all such a shock that I'm sad to say I probably do. But now you're here, it needn't be him. He needn't sit up with me and read to me and comb my fecking hair-"

"Charles, he's been doing it for twelve years, I hardly think it bothers him _now_," Raven laughed, not quite comprehending.

"Well maybe it bothers _me_. Maybe this kind of hypocrisy is just too much for me to take on top of everything else!"

"What?" Raven chuckled, feeling very confused. "Charles, I don't understand. Did you...did you and Erik have a fight or something?"

Charles drew up his hands and rubbed his face for a moment, then stared at the corner of the room, breathing deeply, as if trying to calm himself.

"Raven," he said finally, sighing, apparently deciding on how to tell her. "Do you remember when I called you the other day? Um...twelve years ago?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, struggling to think back. They had talked all the time. Who could remember one phone call out of a million?

"It was at Moira's reception-the day before her wedding. Erik and I were fighting, had been fighting. He didn't want me to go to the wedding, any wedding, much less be in it. He threw a tantrum and stood me up at the goddamned reception and I called you in a bloody state. You remember."

Raven's heart chilled so cold it was hard to breathe around, like breathing through an ice cube-because she _did _remember.

She stood up unsteadily, pushing her hand back through her hair, confused why it was so long and soft.

"You called-you were crying, and drunk-you said...but you were _upset, _Charles, I know you were very upset."

"Yes," Charles agreed, nodding slowly. "Yes I was upset. Erik knew how to be very...upsetting, when he wanted to be. Which was a lot of the time. Lately...Raven, you all say...I guess it must be that's he's been a good little boy for a long time. Mr. Hyde has turned back into Dr. Jekyll. But don't you see? It's easy to love someone when they don't talk back. Now that I'm back to my old self, he'll be back to his."

"It's not, Charles," she growled, gripping his hand, and she could tell by his wince that she was being too rough, but she couldn't make herself ease up. "It is _not _easy to love someone like that. I know because I couldn't. You're my own brother and I couldn't manage it."

She had to stop, much as she wanted to continue on, because her tears were choking her.

"We're not good together." don't want the _same things_, he and I."

"You _weren't, _Charles. I'll give you that. He was too monomaniacal and you were too green to know how to handle him. But that was _twelve fucking years ago_. That's not who he is anymore. And you holding his past against him is just cruel. If you knew all he's done for you you wouldn't be acting this way."

His eyes dropped, body wilting slightly from its argumentative tenseness.

"Don't. Don't misunderstand me. Don't think me hard-hearted and ungrateful. I do appreciate everything he's done for me, and I know it's a lot. But is gratitude alone enough to keep two people together who so obviously don't belong together?"

"Don't belong together! I can't be hearing you right! Are you not the same man who told me you'd love Erik till the day you died-but I guess you were just talking out your ass, now it's 'gratitude alone'."

"I never said I don't love him. I do love him-I'll always love him. I just don't think that's enough anymore. Erik always accused me of being naive-well look how sophisticated I've become. I know better now. He taught me. Love has its limits."

Raven was shaking, and shook her head in time with it, wishing for a cigarette. "You've had a shock. You're not thinking clearly."

He turned away, face drawn and upset.

"My brain is the one muscle still completely under my control, thank you very much."

"So then you're _not _breaking up with Erik."

Charles went silent, and his eyes slowly but surely filled with tears, but did not run over.

"You know," he murmured, so quietly it was hard to hear him over her powerful heartbeats, raring with adrenaline from their argument. "I've never broken up with anyone before. Erik was my first. The first man I'd ever been with. The first man I'd ever loved. Was that why I held on for so long? Despite all reason? It was always going to be hard, but I think I could have done it. not easily, but I could have done it right. Done it well. I could have separated us without smashing us, a clean incision that we could have recovered from."

He wiped an eye carefully, mouth tight where it wanted to quiver.

"Now...now I'm not so sure. I'm not ungrateful-I told you that. I still want this to go gently on Erik."

"That's not possible," she scoffed. Charles might want to be oh so sophisticated, but he was showing himself off as just the same naive little simpleton as ever.

"No. Exactly. Raven, with him here, every day, being so nice, so caring, put me further and further endebted to him-that's not possible. Raven, this was always going to be hard but he's making it absolutely impossible. That's why you have to help me."

"You want me to break up with him for you?! Are you out of your mind? No! No way!"

"That's not what I mean!" Charles exclaimed, gripping her hand. "I'm not asking you to do anything so huge, just...give me the same fighting chance I had twelve years ago."

"What are you talking about?"

"Give me some space to build my courage, my ability to make a real break of it, painful as it'll be. Don't let him put me further and further in his debt. Don't let this be any harder for me than it has to be. It's so hard already. Ask him to leave."

And even though he said this with tears in his eyes, those big blue eyes she thought she'd never see again, asked it in that pliant pleasing English voice she thought she'd never hear, her heart was closed to him.

He was her brother, but Erik had been her brother, too, for twelve years, twelve years of torture and hardship and guilt. Charles was a mindless child, jumping into the middle of a complicated game, ignorant as to how much work had gone into it while he'd been away. Erik had built a temple to him for twelve years and it was bad enough that Raven herself had plotted to destroy it, but for the god himself to suddenly arrive after years of misery and impossibility and war to spit in the face of his one devoted priest-this was too much.

Yet underneath her scathing ire, fueling and also undermining it, was a queasy quagmire of terror. Charles' request was more than an affront to Erik, it was a downright torture to her. Charles wanted her to send Erik away, to take his place, to even _attempt _to do what he did on a daily basis? It was like suddenly finding herself at the top of very high stilts she should have practiced with but never had. The fact that Charles trusted her to proved how out of the loop he was, how deluded she was: he imagined she was devoted enough to do what Erik did for him, when everyone else in the world knew that she'd washed her hands of him years ago.

Charles wanted a fighting chance, but where was Erik's fighting chance? Didn't Erik deserve the opportunity to undo the damage, the 'lesson' he'd wrought?

Before Raven could give her deep-seated anger and deeper-seated panic away, the door banged open and Dr. Morel came in, a bounding bright little plump woman with a huge grin and flyaway mousy hair. Charles glanced at Raven almost desperately for a moment, but had to give way finally to greet the doctor with his usual warm politeness.

"Wakey wakey! Look at you!" the woman shouted jovially. She lowered her half-moon glasses at Erik expressively as he followed her through the door. "Lucky boy! Okay, shoo, shoo."

She motioned Raven out of her way, so she moved around to the other side of Charles' bed, making a show of getting in before Erik and holding Charles' hand before he could.

Charles was stubborn and he would only find someone more inclined if she outright refused to help him. But she couldn't help it if she did a bad job at what he asked of her, and neither could Charles. He just wasn't the type to fire her, replace her, for simply being an awful caretaker, especially if she was "trying her hardest", if it seemed like she was taking the task to heart.

"Alright, I'm going to lower your bed, okay? Ready? Here we go," Morel boomed, dropping Charles flat onto his back, Erik tensed beside her as Charles' heart rate picked up on the monitor. "Don't worry! I'm not going to hurt you!"

"I'm sorry," Charles grinned, blushing luminously through his paper-white skin. "I don't know why it's doing that."

"No worries! No worries! Now, this is not a test! We just want to see where you're at so we know what to work on in physical therapy. Don't tax yourself, don't go beyond what's comfortable-that'll just exhaust you, now _and _when we get to work above your actual level! Honesty is the best policy, okay? Okay?"

He nodded; his fingers were digging into her hand nervously. She patted him and he smiled at her.

"Okay, now don't mind me manhandling you-I'm a man handler! Nothing I haven't done to a thousand patients, okay? Perfectly okay, okay? Here we go." Morel put her hand under Charles' neck and pushed the pillows out of her way-Erik was the smart one that took them from her and piled them on the chair. Charles' head fell back loosely and his hand tightened on hers.

"Okay, relax your neck, just let your head fall back. Relax, relax...now swallow." Charles glanced at Morel anxiously and Raven glanced at Erik just the same-the man was rubbing warm circles on Charles' leg, watching with laser-eyed interest, mouth tight, as if he were holding his breath.

Charles swallowed, an audible gulp in the silent room, and everyone gave a nervous chuckle at that.

"See? Not so bad, okay?" Morel set his head down on the bare mattress and massaged his shoulders, laughing. "Okay, again."

Charles swallowed again, easily, smiling at his own silly nervousness.

"Great," Morel beamed, and moved her hands up his throat, pushing the pads of her thumbs on either side of his trachea, just in the hollow of his jaw. "Again."

Charles' mouth moved imperceptibly, like a baby with a pacifier, his eyes slowly growing wide and wet with shock or something worse.

"I..." he gasped finally after a couple of seconds. "I...I can't."

His voice cracked and his eyes were leaking before Raven even knew what was going on, but there was Erik already pressing a handkerchief into her palm and nudging her until she dried his eyes for him.

"That's okay, dear," Morel assured, brushing his hair back from his brow and accepting the pillows as Erik handed them to her, picking Charles back up and depositing them under his shoulders and head professionally. "We'll have to get that up to par before they take that feeding tube out, though! But that's alright-you'd be surprised how quickly these things come back!"

She tested his arms then, having him push back against her resistance, up, down, stretch forward, pull back-Charles could hardly hold his whole arm off the bed for more than a few herculean seconds at a time and by time she finished his mouth was quivering with frustration and fear. And Raven had no clue what to do about it. She couldn't help but feel that Erik, right beside her, would be doing a better job in her position, was itching to take it over. But he left the field to her, offering nothing more but his warm hands and reassuring glances.

"Alright, let's check out those legs of yours, okay?" Morel suggested eagerly, pretending not to notice Charles' reticence. Her idea appeared to be to get it over with as quickly as possible, like pulling off a bandaid. Raven couldn't help but feel that Charles would handle it better if they took their time, allowed him to recover from one blow before they delivered the next, but she wasn't sure how to assert this out loud.

"Maybe we should take a break for a minute," Erik suggested in a low, pained voice. This had to be just as hard for him to bear as for her-harder probably, the way this whole ordeal had been harder for him, while Raven had distanced herself, saved herself.

"No, let's get it over with, please," Charles growled back, just to be ornery, just to disagree with him. Erik bit his tongue, held his breath, and Morel gave another oblivious, "Okay!" before tossing back the covers.

"Ah!" Charles gasped in one high-pitched yelp, tossed his head back-eyes wide and terrified in their stare at the ceiling, mouth a wide grimace of terror, whole body tense, heart beat setting off the alarm that warned of too-high-too-low on the monitor. Raven had a momentary spike of panic, between his tense contortion and the ringing machine that he was having some kind of fit, an attack, and she jumped back in surprise before she could help herself, wrenching her hand away. Erik was in her place immediately, taking Charles' grasping hand, holding him by the neck and pressing their foreheads together.

"It's all right, Charles," he growled, voice twisted and pained. "It's not forever-it's not forever-things will get better. Just be strong a little longer. Just get through _this_, Charles."

Raven looked down, at her brother's legs like two sticks lined up under the hem of his hospital gown, the knees like oranges on a straw, large and ruddy, his feet pale, bony, talon-like. She guessed it was shocking if you'd never seen it before, like something out of a horror movie, those legs attached to your body that just the day before, seemingly, had been dancing at a wedding and walking and rolicking.

But Charles was not that person any more, and if this was a rude awakening, at least it was an awakening all the same. Things had changed.

"Not to worry, Mr. Xavier! Not to worry!" Morel was assuring in a nervous pitchy voice, but Charles didn't seem to hear her, or see her or hear or see anything, gripping Erik's jacket and gasping for impossible breath.

"We'll get through it, Charles-it's all right. It's-" Erik gave a grunt of pain just as Charles' body went completely lax. Raven thought for a moment he had passed out, fainted from shock-until she saw the glassy, heavy-lidded lilt to his eyes, blinking slowly like a heroin-addicted owl.

"He shouldn't do that!" Morel hissed, shaking Erik's shoulder. "He shouldn't use his telepathy until he's cleared! Especially for a psi link!"

Raven had to agree. She knew how dangerous it was for a telepath to mesh with another's mind, the tangle, the jumble of interconnecting links that were difficult to navigate even for an experienced telepath, whereas Charles' powers were now acting up, unstable, diluted. What was the point in Charles coming back, seemingly from the dead, just for him to take out him _and _Erik in one burst of dangerously unsettled telepathy?

"It's okay," Erik muttered, and Charles muttered it with him. God, but this was bad. A telepath should never get so ingrained that he couldn't differentiate his body from another's, one mind's commands from his own.

Erik closed his eyes tightly, and Charles did too-when Erik held her brother with a hand on either side of his face he did it back. Raven's heart was painful in her chest, hysterical tears on the border of her emotions again.

Erik grit his teeth and spoke through them.

"Okay, Charles. Pull back. Pull back now. It's okay. I've got you...I've got you..."

A hiss of breath and Erik pulled away, Charles blinking up at him, hands sliding loose.

Raven released the breath she hadn't known she was holding with a sound rather like a sob. She realized she'd morphed accidentally back to normal in her distraction, but didn't bother to correct it.

"Okay?" Erik chuckled, teary.

Charles stared back with those wide blue eyes, breath coming in tiny gasps.

"I can't breathe," he explained in hitched, panting attempts.

Almost before the oxygen mask was securely in place, Charles was completely asleep again, missing Morel's diatribe on why using an unstable, recovering telepathy was like playing with fire. Raven and Erik nodded, the man silent and green-hued, until she burned herself out and left in a breathless, terrorized huff.

Erik's legs immediately gave out on him, pitching him, shaking, into the hospital chair. He groaned, laughing, rubbing his face with his hands, color slowly returning.

"God, that was a close one!" He wiped his brow and, seeing that Raven wasn't feeling much more at ease, struggled to reassure her, putting on a more professional face. "The coma's reduced his lung capacity a little and these little panic attacks lead to a downward spiral. He doesn't get as much air when he panics and then he realizes he's not getting as much air and gets claustrophobic and they've got to put him on oxygen. Dr. McCoy's going to get him X-Rayed just in case though-in case the pneumonia left any scarring. Don't worry. We'll get better."

Raven just shook her head, biting her lip as she watched her brother sleeping peacefully now. She knew that this was only the most cinematic problem of the day.

"Erik, trust me, _we're _not out of the woods yet."

"What do you mean?" he questioned, immediately alert.

"You remember Moira's reception? When you threw your hissy fit and let Charles stew a bit, standing him up at the reception dinner?"

Erik blushed deeply, so she knew he did.

"Charles called me. It was a drunk dial-you know he liked a good vengeful drink after you pissed him off. He...he said he was going to break up with you."

The man shifted miserably in his seat, but didn't seem very shocked, so that she wondered if he knew already, if Charles had told him already, at the wedding or something, one of those hissing threats you were never completely sure were serious or drunken or heat of the moment. She continued, so he could be sure now which it was.

"Erik, he meant it. He wants me to send you off, take over from you, so he can-"

Erik cut her off, waving down her next words weakly.

"I know, Raven," he croaked, staring at Charles with a pale, frightened face. "When he-when I...it wasn't like normal, Raven. You remember what it used to feel like. Like a line of conversation, a single wire of in-and-out. And even when he'd push emotions or images or the like at you, it always felt so _clean_...This...this was like getting gum in your hair. Like drowning. There was no separation-it was all tangled up together and inside, him and me and us and-and I saw it all."

"So you know he's serious... Erik, _what are we going to do?_"

But he just shook his head, smiling nauseously.

"Raven, do I deserve anything else?" She opened her mouth to tell him that he _did_, but Erik continued. "I got my miracle. He's back. That's all I wanted. What more can I seriously ask for?"

"But he's making a mistake! He doesn't know what you're like now-he's basing this on a decision he made when you were a twenty-eight year old asshole! He doesn't _know _you, Erik!"

He shrugged, eyes soft and resigned.

"We'll still be friends. He's too kind to deny me that. I'll still get to be in his life. And he might learn what I'm like. He might even take me back one day. And I'll always take him back, if ever he wanted me..."

Raven shook her head in shock at this sort of servile spinelessness. Erik caught it, eye glinting at her as he smiled.

"Hey, I always told you: it was never about penance. It was never about making myself good enough for him. You can never be so good as to make someone _forget _how bad you were. All I wanted was for him to come back. To come back and be happy. It never had to be with me."

Raven tried to steel herself against this disappointment, but something fiery and intent and _terrified_ ignited in her heart.

"So what?" she snarled. "You're just going to leave him? Leave him to _me_?"

Erik's head immediately snapped up, eyes startled with something like the same panic she was feeling.

"Of course not!" he yelped, and had to take a painful moment to get himself under control. "No, of course not. After all-he hasn't broken up with me _yet_. He hasn't asked me to leave. And, like all cowards, I'm not one to _volunteer _for torture."

_Neither am I, _Raven thought to herself, watching her brother sleep, pale and small and deluded. _Which is why, yet again, I can't do what I should._

Now was her chance, to rise to the occasion, to protect her brother like she'd failed to do for twelve years, to make up to him how much she'd failed him. But she couldn't. Yet again, she was going to let him down.

Thank God she was used to the feeling by now.


	10. -Angel-

"Yoo hoo nursie!" someone boomed and Angel woke up in a jolt, nearly falling out of her bus seat. The bus driver was laughing at her. "This is your stop!"

Looking out the window, she saw the hospital looming up, her old bus stop. She wondered again if she shouldn't have just paid the five dollars to park here rather than taking the shuttle from the park and ride. A bit late for that, she guessed. She struggled to a stand and waddled to the door, huge stomach ballooning out in front of her. Her mother said it was like walking around with a bowling ball, but at the moment it felt more akin to lugging around the moon.

"Thanks," she mumbled, reshouldering her bag and stepping lugubriously down the steps. She took off her headphones as she walked to the hospital and saw that Trevor had texted her.

_whr r u?_

_whrs ur mom kep all teh fuckin chips_

She growled at the screen and shoved the phone in her pocket.

She wondered what Darwin was doing.

She rubbed her moon-sized stomach, trying to stop herself from thinking what Darwin was doing.

"_This baby needs to know its father, Darwin," _she'd whispered, not allowing herself to cry because one of them had to be strong and she didn't want it to have to be Darwin.

"_He wasn't good enough for you-what makes him good enough for this baby? Maybe I'm not the father, Angel, but I __**could **__be."_

Maybe Trevor hadn't been the best when they dated, but he wasn't the worst person on the face of the earth. He didn't do hard drugs, he didn't beat on her or curse at her or even really raise his voice to her, most of the time. Maybe he couldn't hold down a good job, maybe he had immature prick friends who drank and partied and were too interested in easy women, maybe he played too many video games. But did that exclude him from a right to his child? They'd made a stupid mistake, they both had, but it didn't have to curse them for life. They could make this right, this could be an opportunity for them, to be a family, to be a real family.

That had to assuage, at least a little, how awful she felt about Darwin, how awful she felt _with_out Darwin.

_What other fucking option was there, really? _she growled to herself. Even if she'd decided to blow Trevor off, she'd only been dating Darwin for a handful of weeks. Who could be the rest of their lives on that? The life of their child, even. Better the devil you know that the devil you don't, right?

She was off duty, or on leave, rather, so she had to check in with Jennet for an access band, and was quickly attacked with conversation.

This was probably one of the most annoying things about being pregnant: suddenly no one wanted to talk about your job or a good book you'd read or your plans for the weekend-all they wanted to talk about was your baby, your pregnancy, your morning sickness. It was like having a boring, rather aggravating friend who everyone wanted to discuss, discuss constantly, and discuss to the exclusion of _everything _else. Angel extricated herself as quickly as possible. Erik at least would have better things to talk about than her backaches and swollen feet.

She still couldn't quite believe it. When Carlotta had called her at her mother's house in Phillie she'd simply stood there, phone in hand, trying to process it, her mom asking her worriedly what had happened, Trevor glancing at her a couple of times from Call of Duty.

"He's awake, Angel," the woman had sobbed.

She hadn't been able to stay on the phone long, just to give a rushed, wet detailing of events and ask her when she could get out there.

It was hard. She'd always been miserly with the money and had never owned a car, not so long as the hospital paid for a bus pass. But now, moved back in with her mother, Trevor "finding work" and using her bus pass as often as he could sneak it out of her wallet, it was more difficult. She'd have to take two buses to catch a train to the city, and then two buses out to the hospital. This pregnant, it was more than she could think of without a shudder. She'd had to wait for a day when her mother didn't have work or need her car.

In the meantime, all Angel could do was sit back anxiously, wringing her hands and her friends for any gossip they could find the time to give her. Which wasn't a lot. She got short texts, all for the most part repeating what she already knew: Charles was awake, Erik was ecstatic, Raven had flown back to revel in the miracle, Moira had driven up from DC. No one seemed to have anything more. Or rather, they had so much more that it was difficult to text it, and they stopped bothering right there. She'd fallen out of the loop, even though she'd been the one holding the loop for years.

They revelled in the excitement without her, and then slowly got over it without her, leaving her behind in anxious exhilaration while they moved forwards into the humor, the annoyance, the dirty backbiting that went on whenever good drama was unfolding. McCoy had thrown himself into work, as if he'd ever given a damn about Charles for a single day; Raven was proving herself as much as a disappointment as ever, disappearing when Charles wanted her, couldn't give the nurse's his medical history, didn't know her elbow from her ass when it came to the hospital; Charles himself was quiet and reserved, morose, willful-not at all what Erik's devotion had led them to expect.

Angel furiously wanted to stop time, to freeze everyone into their first heady rush of good-will and tearful congratulations, keep them like that till she could arrive on the scene to enjoy it. But she couldn't, and so she simmered in a pool of ever increasing self-pity.

Pregnancy had taken a lot from her: a wonderful boyfriend, a life of independence, her work, her figure, her tranquil mind. But now it had gone too far. Now it had taken the one thing she'd never expected, had never expected to have or miss. Erik was at the hospital, resolved and vindicated, and Angel belonged there with him. They were a team, a unit, _friends_. She should have been there with him when it happened if it was going to happen. Charles should have woken up a week earlier, or a few months later-what would it have hurt either way?

Now Angel had to slink back, a Johnny-come-lately to her own party, made ignoble by tardiness and unhopeful of there still being a grain of overjoyed newness that had not been picked over like a corpse in the Serengeti by time she finally arrived. At least she could count on Erik to still have that sheen of brand-new excitement on him, even if everyone else had gotten over the miracle already. Erik had always been a Prometheus of men, and even if the vultures of good-fortune had picked him clean for happiness, his miraculous regeneration would give her something nurturing when she arrived.

* * *

"What do you mean he's not here?!" Angel wailed even as Carlotta dragged her into a comfortable chair to help her off her aching feet.

"He just left to pick them up some coffee. Well, Charles can't have coffee yet, but you know what I mean. That sister went out to get herself a little pick me up but didn't think a thing for them so out Erik went to make it right. Honestly, I don't know why she bothered to come-she just makes more work for everyone and hardly does a thing for Charles, same as ever."

Angel shifted uncomfortably in her chair. It was popular to loathe Raven-when one party worked themselves to the bone and the other hid herself as far away as she could get, it was the obvious outcome-but Angel had never been able to muster the emotion appropriately. She wasn't sure why. She didn't know Raven from Eve-the woman was never around long enough to strike up a conversation with. That was part and parcel of why she was so easy for them to scapegoat. And yet Angel had a sort of sympathy for her.

She wondered if that didn't betoken something wrong, something as disinterested in Charles' fate as Raven had always seemed, within herself. Maybe everyone hated Raven because in their position they would have cared for Charles as steadfastly as Erik did. Maybe Angel felt for her because she knew, honestly, she'd behave more like her than like Erik. After all, she was paid to take care of Charles and still couldn't muster up for him any devotion outside of what she felt for Erik.

"Is she sitting with him?" she questioned, pouting disconsolately at her rotten luck. Go figure she took the trek all the way out there just to be thwarted at the last. At least it sounded as if Erik would be back eventually.

"No, of course not. She never does if she can help it, unless there's someone to show off for. She's down sneaking a cigarette I expect, or on the phone with that hubby back in California. Can't wait to get back, I'm sure, and I can't wait for it either. She's more bother than she's worth. Just yesterday Morel said it was all right for Charles to supplement his feeding tube and Erik says to her go get something to celebrate and what does she come back with but _Indian food! _Chicken tikka masala, I swear to God! And him not even on solids yet! I mean it-God put the wrong one in a coma."

"Who's with him then?"

"No one, he's sitting up all by hisself. He doesn't like our company. People says it's haughty-but honestly, I think he's just trying to pretend he's not in a hospital at all, and we do sort of ruin the illusion. His little friend-Moira-was in as soon as she could drive up-if only she were his natural sister instead!-but she had to leave yesterday in a crazy hurry. Her husband's dragging her through an awful divorce, threatening to take the kids away because she'd left them with her mother to come up here. Couldn't happen to a nicer lady. Brought Erik soup, change of clothes, did nothing but chat and cheer Charles up the whole time she was here, even changed the bedding for me. What a darling. Charles was devastated to see her go."

"Why? He's got Erik to change bedding and cheer him up," Angel balked. Surely Erik hadn't gone through twelve years of this shit for Charles to be moping and 'devastated'.

Carlotta glanced around the bustling entrance and scooted her chair closer, holding Angel's arm conspiratorially. Finally, the good gossip that no one had had the wherewithal to text her.

"Honestly, I don't know how things are going between those two."

Angel's brain fizzed out, but she was still going to try and work out how to ask "WHAT?!" without screaming when Carlotta continued.

"You know I never use my powers for personal gain but...well...I admit, I did have a little peek. I don't know how to explain it. When he first woke up he was just so shocked and upset-and angry! Really, honestly angry! But something happened last week. I don't know what it was-Morel said something about his telepathy so I guess he saw something he shouldn't have-but whatever it was, it's got him mighty confused."

"I thought he'd degenerated? I thought he wasn't a telepath any more?"

"Oh no, he still has some Talent. It's not strong. Not strong at all. Erik says it'll get stronger-I don't know. That's what McCoy is working on, I think. Something about his telepathy, something about all the Tetra-B they gave him."

"What Tetra-B?"

"They gave it to him to turn his telepathy off for surgery. Nurse Rawlings told me Dr. Patrick told him that that's why he was in a coma. Because his telepathy was off and his brain just wouldn't come back without it. I don't understand half of it, and I don't think Charles cares anyway. He's got bigger things on his mind at the moment."

"Like what? How to make Erik even more miserable than he was before?"

"That's not fair," Carlotta frowned. "It's not just hard on Erik, after all. He's not the one that woke up suddenly and twelve years were gone."

"He lost those twelve years, too. He just didn't sleep through them."

"His whole life is gone, everything he worked for...his sister all grown up and married with kids, his best friend going through a messy divorce when he thinks he was just at her wedding. He was going to be a famous scientist now he's almost forty and has to start all over. "

"So? He's not starting over alone. He has Erik if he'd open his eyes. If he was just going to wake up to ruin everything I wish he'd just stayed asleep!"

"Don't say that!" Carlotta gasped. "Charles has to make the choice he thinks is right. I think you'd know a bit about that. I don't hear you bemoaning that boyfriend of yours' fate."

"That's different!" Angel gasped, blushing hard. "Darwin didn't sit by my bedside for twelve years!"

"No," Carlotta laughed. "But I think he would if you gave him the chance."

"This is not about me," Angel growled, huffing to an indignant stand, continuing her tirade even as the phone started ringing and Carlotta's attention was divided. "I did what I had to do. Charles doesn't have a clue what he's doing. You said it yourself-he's confused. Well someone's got to unconfuse him, before he ruins Erik's life forever."

"Angel," Carlotta warned, grabbing the phone and pointing a warning finger as Angel started to stomp away to do just that. "You leave that boy alone. He's been through enough without your pregnant self screaming at him."

"I'm not going to scream at him, I'm going to beat him up," Angel growled, and continued on.

Charles' door was closed but she shoved it open without stopping. She wasn't shocked at seeing Charles, as she thought she might be. It hardly looked like Charles at all, because of his disheveled hair and his gingery beard (that Erik had always kept meticulously shaven) and because he was moving and looking around like any normal human being whereas the man she'd known for years had never moved a muscle on his own. This was more like a complete stranger lying in the bed her patient used to occupy and for a nurse used to the musical beds mentality of a hospital, that wasn't shocking enough to quake her into silence.

But Charles looking up from the book in his lap, his blue eyes on her so still and doleful, so deep and solemn-the resemblance hit her immediately, right in the chest, how much he looked like Erik. It stupefied her enough for Charles to win the first word.

"Hello," he murmured, brows knitting over his fine eyes. "Do I know you?"

Angel tried to remember all the mean horrid things she was going to say to him about stringing Erik along like this, but when she opened her mouth she ended up saying, "I'm Angel Salvadore. I'm your nurse. I was your nurse."

"Angel?" Charles repeated, hand flexing on the binder sitting open in his lap, tensing forward off the bed for a moment in overwhelming interest. "You're...you're Erik's friend aren't you?"

Angel couldn't help her sudden smile because if Charles knew that then Erik must have been talking about her, must have said they were friends.

"Yes," she agreed and Charles waved her eagerly into a second chair that was sitting to the right of his bed. She took it, scooting it forward enough to see what he was looking at. She realized it was one of the binders Erik had made for him to catalogue everything Charles had missed out on. She'd helped scrapbooking last year's-all play stubs and notes about popular songs on the radio and old birthday or Christmas cards from their friends. She didn't recognize this one though. It was tiny in comparison to the one she'd worked on, only a dozen or so pages, and rather sloppy-none of the quaint borders or stamps or stickers she'd been happy to help with.

"Are you two very close?" Charles questioned, thumb picking at the edge of a playbill for _Judgment at Nuremberg. _Angel noticed that all his fine fingernails had been bitten down to the quick and was heated with a new sense of indignation.

"Well he's in here visiting you every single day-so we saw a lot of each other, yeah," she pointed out.

"What...what's he like?" Charles blurted suddenly, catching her off guard.

She laughed disbelievingly, not sure what she was supposed to say.

"He's your boyfriend-don't you know?"

Charles wilted back into the bed, bruised fingertips ironing the pages in his lap.

"I used to know, I think," the man mumbled, that same air of despondency taking over again and Angel realized how pointless it would be to tirade against him. He was obviously already about as tortured as he could be, in the same boat as Erik. But the difference was he was doing this to himself. Erik had never asked for this.

"It sounds like you've been all kinds of confused, lately," Angel said, rather tightly, and Charles seemed to pick up on it, glancing at her.

"Yes, I guess I have been. I thought...I _was _sure, I think, at first. Maybe it hadn't sunk in yet. Maybe it still hasn't."

Angel couldn't help the flash of anger inside her. Charles had no right to be confused, especially about Erik. What was there to be confused _about_? How did twelve years of devotion leave anyone confused?

"Maybe it never will. Maybe everyone just waited twelve years for you just to sit around for _another _twelve years, waiting for you to deal with it," she grit out, knowing by Charles' stark, surprised expression that he hadn't expected her anger, hadn't expected her to throw his complaints back in his face. She knew it wasn't just because she was supposed to be Erik's friend. Part of it was that she was a cute little pregnant lady, his nurse, darling and motherly-he'd never expected her to show this kind of wrath. Well and why shouldn't he? She was pregnant, not inhuman. She still had a sense of justice, a sense of what Erik had been through and what he deserved as his due. It was practically her job to say everything Erik was too masochistic to say to the selfish man.

"E-excuse me?" Charles gasped, wide-eyed.

"I don't think it _has _sunken in yet," she shifted forward to hiss. "Because if it _had _you'd be on your knees thanking Erik till kingdom comes. You'd realize what it really means for him to come here every single day for twelve years-to fight off Dr. McCoy and your _own sister_ who wanted nothing more than for him to sit back and let them starve you to death. You didn't know that, did you? You thought Raven was fighting the good fight but, you know what, she moved out to California and handed over power of attorney and washed her hands of you at _year three_, and the only time she ever regretted it was when she wanted the right to kill you."

"What are you-" Charles gasped, pulling away, but Angel was on a roll now and grabbed his arm, refusing to be stopped.

"And even dear sweet Moira had bigger things to worry about than if you were ever going to wake up or not. So did I; so did all of us. If everyone at this hospital is so thrilled to have you up and talking it's not for you a bit-it's for him. Erik's the one we're all rooting for and you're the last one we ever thought would turn against him."

"Why did you even come here?" Charles questioned, breath coming in tight, angry pants, face flushed, hands shaking. "Just to see if I was worth it? I know I'm not. I wish he'd never done this-I didn't ask him to."

" Erik couldn't care less. He didn't care if you wanted it or if it was worth it or if it was even healthy. He believed it was right and that was all that mattered. That's what made it worth it to him-only to him. _You're _worth it to him. I just wish he was getting a little more than _nothing _for his efforts."

"You don't understand-"

"I don't care to understand. Maybe you had your reasons to wake up with something less than stars in your eyes for him, but your reasons are outdated."

"Just because they're technically outdated doesn't make them any less real to me."

"You selfish bastard," Angel laughed snidely and released him. "The world doesn't run on what's real to _you_."

Charles rubbed his chest, and turned away, taking deep, serious breaths, looking back at the binder, struggling to find something to say to diffuse the situation. Angel awaited it, blood pounding in her ears. She'd gone too far. Had she gone too far? Could she blame this on hormones, on her own bitter emotions poisoning every idea she had these days?

"This is from the first year. From right after the accident, and everything," he explained, tapping the pages with a thin finger. He looked up then, and pointed to a row of the binders on the windowsill. "That ones from...from this year." Angel, although she was suspecting this was a ruse to distract her while he pressed the nurse call button, looked where he was motioning. "It's almost twice as big as this one."

Charles looked at her, and she saw with a gnawing feeling in her stomach that his eyes were wet with tears although he wasn't crying, not yet.

"Who does that? Who spends more time on the eleventh year than on the first?"

Angel took a deep breath, and her voice came out softer than she'd expected.

"Someone who missed you more the eleventh year than first, I'd guess."

Charles opened his mouth, although Angel had no idea what he was going to say, and never would as the door swung open, interrupting them at the perfect, non-volatile time. And by the perfect, non-volatile person, she saw with a beam as Erik walked in, a drink in each hand a plastic bag over his wrist.

He stood in shock, younger and more colorful-looking than she ever remembered seeing him before, in a bright blue T-shirt and black slacks, before he smiled hugely, as if surprised at how happy he was, as if it put into relief how unhappy he hadn't realized he'd been.

"Angel!" he gasped, and that alone seemed to tug her right into his arms. The next instant she was standing with her face pressed to his throat, his stubble catching at her brow, his arms wrapped tightly around her shoulders, inhaling his scent of soap and spicy cologne, forgetting that they'd never hugged before, had hardly even touched.

"It's so good to see you," he murmured into her hair and she almost, _almost _started crying.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't be here for you," she gasped, voice cracking. Erik laughed, body shaking in her arms, and kissed the top of her head.

"I managed."

_You shouldn't have to manage. Your managing days were supposed to be over._

"You two have a lot to catch up on," said Charles, clear, sure voice ill-concealing the strain, like hard, sharp edges showing their shape through a thin sheet. They subsided their embrace, Angel realizing that Erik's eyes weren't completely dry either. "You should go get dinner or something. I hadn't noticed but you've lost quite a bit of weight, haven't you?"

Erik laughed, a mix of embarrassment and surprised gratitude that Charles had noticed, and said with a slight blush, "Maybe a little."

"I'd love to take you out to dinner to celebrate," Angel agreed, beaming. It also meant she wouldn't have to sit here with them, risk tiptoeing around all the awkwardness left over from her practically flaying Charles alive.

"My treat," Erik argued. "I never did congratulate you after all..."

Angel didn't point out that this was because when she'd talked about it with Erik she still hadn't been sure she was going to keep it.

"You can each buy the other's meal, then," Charles laughed awkwardly, and Angel wasn't sure but it did seem as if when he swept his eye over Erik the glance was a little warmer than was to be expected. Had she managed to talk some sense into him after all?

"I'll just get my bag from the nurses' station and meet you out there," she suggested, which was eventually agreed upon when Erik realized they were all really serious. Still he glanced back at Charles more than once, as if sad to be leaving him, even though he obviously wanted to be left. So Angel, at least, left the confused man, not bothering to say goodbye. She hadn't come to see him, after all.

But she propped the door open as she left, and painted herself to the wall carefully and silently, listening with every fiber of her being.

She wasn't sure why, beyond her general nosiness. She had her own protective tendencies towards Erik, she supposed, and wanted to check Charles treated him well after their talk; if it wasn't to her liking she'd have to do something about it before she went back into exile. She could go in there and thrash the man back into a coma for all that he was squandering consciousness. Sleeping Charles had hurt Erik enough without wakeful Charles tagging in.

Charles seemed to realize that too.

"Thank you," Charles murmured softly, so that she had to strain to hear him.

"No problem," Erik replied. "I ordered it with whole milk-I hope that's okay. Only your nutritionist wants you to put on some weight, and anyway, milk fat is good for you."

"No, I...I meant..._thank you_. For...everything really, although I know how paltry that sounds. I owe you so much, I know. My life, apparently..."

"Oh," Erik said, blankly, as though he'd never expected this. Angel held her breath, trying to stifle back a scream of joy. Had she gotten through to him? Had he come to his senses? Had all he needed been a mouthy pregnant woman spewing the hard truths at him to get through that thick confused head of his?

"Only, I don't think I've mentioned it before. I was...well I was caught up and selfish, I guess. I had a lot to think about without thinking about how much you've done for me. How much you've put yourself through for my sake. I really do appreciate it, Erik. I don't think I could ever explain how much."

"Don't. Don't be grateful. I don't...I don't want _that_."

"...I know," Charles murmured sagely. "But...But at the moment, I'm not sure I have anything else to give." Silence reigned, and all Angel could hear was her own painful heartbeat in her ears until Charles spoke again. "I'm sorry. This is all so sudden, for me. You've had twelve years, Erik, to figure out what you want. For me...two weeks ago we weren't even on speaking terms."

"I know it feels that way," Erik grit out, and Angel's heart broke to hear how pained he sounded, how much pain he was holding back. "And I know I don't deserve to ask anything of you-"

"-Erik-"

"I'm _not _asking for us to be closer than we were twelve years ago, Charles. I know I have no right to it. But I'm begging-don't push us farther apart. Give us a fighting chance."

"You've been fighting for me all this time. Fighting for my _life_. And so I appreciate how petty this sounds, but: I don't know how much fight I have left in me. We weren't bad together all at once. It came in bits and pieces, like a creeping insurgency, and I'd been fighting that for years. And just when I'd given up and let the horde overwhelm me I wake up and you're telling me to fight for us."

After a long few moments, when Erik apparently had the strength, he managed, barely, to say, "I understand."

"All I'm asking for is time. Time to figure this out."

Erik gave a sick, weak chuckle. "Well, if there's anything I have practice giving you, it's time."


	11. -Darwin-

A/N: I'm not even going to lie. This chapter kicked my ass. It's like a was so excited by all your amazing reviews and support that I decided, "You know what? Let's fuck all that shit up." SORRY. Just...just...here. Just take it. *bawling*

* * *

"Welcome to New York," the customs agent growled, almost sarcastically, and he stamped Darwin's passport.

Darwin was too exhausted to even comment, just reshouldered his bag, took back his documents, and shuffled to baggage claim.

Now that he was back in the US it was okay to turn his phone back on and he did so now, but without any interest. Who was going to call him? Who was going to text him? Who in this whole city knew him from Adam?

A part of him knew this cynical, melancholy crap was leftover melancholy crap from his melancholy crappy trip, but he didn't do anything to try and stop it. His grandmother had died, his one ally in the world-he was allowed to be as melancholy as he liked if only for that reason, but that was not his only reason.

There was taking two miserable months to settle his grandmother's estate in Puerto Rico, staying in a house he'd rather not remember with a funeral and sobbing cousins and neighbors. There was the isolation of going from the greatest city on earth to a small farming town. There was his broken Spanish and the stares and sniggers it got him.

There was Angel.

He'd been trying not to think of her for months. It hadn't worked, but it had been easier in Puerto Rico. The most he could think was, _I wish Angel were here to see this. I wish Angel were here to help me with this. I wish Angel were here. _

But nothing in Puerto Rico had reminded him of her, and he hadn't realized how much that had helped. Now, back in New York, it all seemed to hit him, right in the gut. The city exuded Angel; the city _was _Angel. It was her strength and her attitude, her beauty and her humor. He felt like he was going to be sick.

Grabbing his checked bag off the carousel, he skipped the taxi stand and rolled straight into the closest airport bar, ordering something cold and extremely alcoholic. It was hard to get past his mutation enough to actually get drunk, but he found that if he drank quickly enough he could at least attain a buzz, and at this point he'd take what he could get.

The place was almost completely empty at this time of day, so Darwin took a seat at the bar and divested himself of his heavy bags. His drink showed up just as the TV near him came back from commercial, and while it was turned down too low to hear more than just an indistinct murmur, Darwin rested his heavy head against his knuckles and read the slow transcript blaring across the bottom of the screen.

"Is the government subsidizing junk food? One mother speaks out against the health content of school lunches. Constructions continues into the work week. What commuters need to know. Papers filed today against Phengen Co in the case of the Miracle Mutant. Did Tetra-B cause his twelve year coma? That's where we start, Fox 5 News, right now."

"Mind if I turn this up?" the bartender yawned, motioning to the TV. "My wife's crazy about miracles, doesn't matter what species it happens to."

"Sure," Darwin muttered. Wife. Angel would have made a good wife. Not in any old-fashioned sense-he didn't mean it like that. But Angel would have made a good wife for him. He loved her, and those always made for the best marriages, he thought. His father had loved his mother. If she'd loved him back in any real way it would have made all the difference.

The news anchor on TV gave way to a scrawny doctor, sitting behind his desk and in front of a wall of awards, pushing his glasses up the line of his nose. "Research, once attempted, has very easily shown that what Mr. Xavier experienced was a severe, almost allergic, reaction to the Tetra-B. This reaction would have been dangerous even without the extreme over dosing he encountered. If Phengen had properly tested the drug beforehand, this sort of tragedy could have been avoided completely."

A woman's voice over explained, "This allergic reaction? A telepathic degradation that kept Charles Xavier in a coma for twelve years."

Another doctor graced the screen, a young woman with straight black hair and the title of Telepath Specialist. "With the average human in a coma, they slowly awaken, if they awaken at all, after the brain has recovered from its trauma. In this particular instance, as I understand it, the brain could not see itself as recovered without some use of its telepathy. And, of course, the telepathy could not recover until the effects of Tetra-B had been completely overcome, which is a slow-going and variable process even when the drug works according to plan."

"Phengen has yet to comment on its pending lawsuit. The multi-million dollar company could face steep financial penalties should they lose in litigation, but for Charles Xavier and his family, this is less about money and more about principle."

The scene changed again, this time to a bright hospital room and Darwin spit his drink out all over the bar when he recognized the man in the bed as well as the austere man by his side, regardless of the numerous other people in the room he ignored.

"I know them!" he gasped, pointing wildly as the bartender gave him a disgusted look, or maybe his wet bar a disgusted look.

"Ah, you mutants all know each other," the man waved back.

"The money would all be donated to Mutant Health Alliance," Erik said, very strong and lawyery, looking just as pale and thin as ever, although not as weepy nor drunk as when Darwin saw him last. "Which works to provide reliable and safe alternatives to unfortunately dangerous standard-use human-made drugs like Tetra-B."

The man in the bed, spoke as well, and Darwin was surprised at his crisp accent as well as his gentle, friendly way of talking. As if he were talking to a long-lost friend and not a camera. "The problem is, these drugs are not extensively tested on mutants before large-scale production. Many of these issues could be cleared up while still in the lab phase. MHA is working very hard to do just that, and we want to help them any way we can. This should never happen to another mutant. I pray it doesn't. Anything raised through litigation or our fundraising will be matched by the Xavier Trust."

The newswoman came back, shuffling her papers.

"Charles Xavier recently awoke from a _twelve-year _coma, practically unheard of. We're very happy to say he is now counting down the weeks until he can return home to his family. He will celebrate his return home with a fundraiser dinner for Mutant Health Alliance at St. Rita's Hospital, where he got most of his care. The fundraiser is scheduled for the 29th. Please visit the website listed on the screen for more information, or to donate."

"Twelve years," the bartender snorted, turning the volume back down. "You just can't keep a mutant down."

But Darwin was too busy to figure out if this statement was maliciously meant or not, because he was already pulling out his cell phone and dialing the one number he'd memorized since the moment it was given to him. Angel had said it would be best if they didn't speak, if they made a clean break of it-but he just couldn't pass up an excuse like this, and he knew Angel would be too thrilled at the miracle to hold it against him.

* * *

Darwin had never been to a black-tie event, even if it was for charity. He'd never seen a real person in a tuxedo before, unless they were on a movie set. Even as a taxi driver he'd never seen anyone all decked out like that. Luck of the draw he guessed. So it was strange to see Erik so completely polished, even if his last in-person image of the man hadn't been a bawling drunken mess. It was strange to see Charles sitting in his wheelchair with an honest to god flower in his lapel, even if he hadn't been in a coma the last time Darwin had seen him. It was strange to see Angel, hiding the remnants of her baby bump in a flowing black velvet dress, even if she hadn't been pregnant and breaking up with him the last time he'd seen her.

Erik stopped eaves-dropping on Charles' conversation with some old society woman in pink chiffon and snapped his fingers suddenly, stared at Darwin anew.

"The taxi driver!"

"You got it," Darwin laughed, sipping the Scotch and soda he'd got to wash the taste of champagne out of his mouth. Why was champagne the drink of toasts? He hated the stuff. If he ever got married he wouldn't allow champagne anywhere near it.

"You didn't remember him?" Angel laughed bitterly, pausing in her glaring response to a text. She'd been connected to the thing all night, which Darwin had thought was because she had a newborn at home and needed to check in constantly. With her hissed curses and scowling looks, though, he was now pretty sure she was not texting her mother.

"I don't remember a lot from that night," Erik grumbled, but managed a smile. Nudging Darwin in the ribs and rolling his eyes as Angel growled and went back to her cell phone. He'd been rather icy and reserved when Angel had first introduced them so Darwin appreciated the change. "Well, what are you up to these days?"

So Darwin told him about his grandma dying, about Puerto Rico, about selling her house and taking care of her effects. H talked a little louder about how he was using the money she'd left him to quit his taxi job. To get his EMT license. To study to be a firefighter. She was busy firing a text back though and didn't hear him. Jeeze...and she had been the one to tell him he should put his mutation to good use. Now that he'd done it she couldn't care less. And Erik, for all his nodding, was keeping one eye on Charles, as if waiting for him to finish with the woman so he could monopolize his conversation.

He stopped though when Charles glanced up and caught him at it, red mouth quirking into a teasing slant.

"That sounds great," Erik informed, blushing, pretended to be watching the burgeoning dance floor. Or maybe he was looking for Charles' sister to talk to. Darwin guessed they really didn't have much to talk about, besides Angel-and she was right there. Darwin tried though, shifting the conversation to the fundraiser and the Mutant Health Alliance and stuff.

Erik stiffened and Darwin looked up to see what had happened, what he'd said that was so wrong, but Erik didn't seem to notice him any more, or notice anyone. He was white as a sheet, as if he'd seen a ghost or his own death, eyes huge, staring, unwavering. Darwin followed the gaze. At the entrance, half in shadows, was a man, ropy and panther-like with muscle, dressed nicely but as if it were an afterthought, black hair unruly and untended. He didn't look like a psycho-killer, no one Erik needed to stare at with so much terror-in fact, the man seemed rooted in his own shock, unmoving, unmenacing.

Darwin looked back and Erik's mouth tightened, his eyes blazed. The man disappeared, as if dragged from the room.

"Are you all right?" Charles asked suddenly, as the woman he was talking to moved on. Angel looked up too, upset that Charles had noticed something amiss before she had.

"Fine," Erik croaked, and purposefully shook himself out of it. He tried to smile but it was a grimace. Showed everyone his empty glass but couldn't hide his shaking hand. "I'm thirsty. Want a drink? Charles? Got to stay hydrated."

But he forgot to wait for anyone's reply before he stumbled off to the bar. Darwin kept an eye on him although he wasn't repaid for his diligence. Erik did not sneak out to see whoever that was at the door.

Charles glanced after him as well but Darwin couldn't tell if the look was more anxious or suspicious. Before he could decide, Angel interrupted whatever it was the man was thinking.

"Do you like fishing, Mr. Xavier?" she questioned, rather icily.

"Hmm? Oh, I don't know. I've never really been."

"I don't think you'd be a very good fisherman."

"Why's that?"

"Because you don't seem to understand that you're supposed to cut a fish off the line if you don't want it anymore."

Charles chuckled then, even though Darwin didn't get what the hell they were talking about. You were _not _supposed to cut a line to get rid of a fish. You had to reel it all the way in and rip the hook out first. What tortured fish had Angel left in the waters, hook sunk deep forever?

"Oh Angel," the man sighed, face at once tender and menacing. "I envy you your _uncomplicated _love life so very much." And he glanced at Darwin as he said it and he and Angel both blushed hot because he got it now.

Erik arrived again, seemingly back to normal, with a glass of wine for him and Charles. They were obviously just unwanted props left over from his escape though. He set them on the table immediately and turned to Charles, smiling joyfully, missing any awkwardness because Charles blinded him to almost anything else.

"Well? Aren't you going to ask me to dance?" he asked, arms crossed over his chest.

Charles laughed and Darwin noticed the band had started up a slow song.

"I haven't quite mastered dancing in this contraption yet," the brunet admitted, hands on the wheels, displaying a little jig by twisting the chair from left to right.

Erik beamed back at him and put his hands out, surprising Charles into compliance with his seriousness. The smaller man took his hand and allowed Erik to put his arm around his waist and sweep him gently from the chair, flush against his body.

Darwin could hear Charles' deep breath as he settled against Erik's chest, saw the way Charles closed his eyes almost rapturously, the way he couldn't help but nuzzle closer into the line of Erik's jaw. But when his eyes opened again they contained a deep sadness that threw everything else into darkness, and suddenly his smile was on the steps of the gallows and his clutch on Erik's shoulders was as to a departing lover. Those eyes saw that the world was ever capable of breaking open into painful splinters, and the man behind them seemed to expect that it soon would.

Erik took him away and they danced, tenderly and playfully, happily and tragically. Angel's hand found his and tugged him forward.

"This is a good song," she informed him, and dragged him to the dance-floor as well, dress brushing heavily at his legs.

_And now we're standing face-to-face_

_Isn't this world a crazy place?_

_Just when I thought our chance had passed_

_You go and save the best for last._

He held Angel close and warm to his body and wished they could dance to this song forever, and even though they didn't have a song and now never would, he knew for himself that this was their song and wished she'd realize it too, come to her senses although it was probably too late for that.

"We've never danced before," Angel murmured and her cheek brushed his as she shifted against him.

"Sure," he countered. "I danced with you at Target."

She laughed and her body shook in his arms, in his bones, in his heart.

"I guess you're right."

He couldn't hold his love inside him, so he said, breathless with it. "I'm right about a lot of things."

He was worried she'd stiffen angrily, that she'd push him away, that she'd think this was a mistake to have him so close when it wasn't a mistake at all but the best decision she'd ever made, apart from the one where she gave him her phone number.

"Darwin," she whispered, but whatever she was going to say was interrupted as someone came up behind her and tugged on her dress petulantly.

Darwin had no idea what Trevor looked like or anything about him, but as soon as he focused on this man, needy and pouting, brazen yet shrinking, like a rat, he knew it was Trevor.

"How come you weren't answering your phone?" he demanded immediately, right there on the dance floor, glaring half-heartedly at a couple who threatened to trod on him.

"Trevor what the fuck? I told you I couldn't talk right now. I'm at a party. How'd you get in?"

"I'm mutant too, aren't I? I've got ways, don't I?" he argued, hands shoved deep in his pockets. "Anyway, Morrie's waiting for me in the car. Can you spot me a twenty? We need bud. I'll totally get you back later, baby."

Trevor didn't look at him, didn't glance at him, didn't mention him. He was invisible, a non-entity, a most of dust.

"Excuse me," he muttered and dropped his hand from where he'd accidentally left it on Angel's waist, escaped, stalking blindly yet surely to the bathroom just outside the auditorium, where hopefully no one would dare intrude on his crisis of the heart.

He shouldn't have come. Why had he come? What had he hoped to gain? Just because she invited him, did that mean she wanted to be with him? Why had he let himself believe that? A look, a smile, a dance. None of it mattered in the least. None of it added up to anything he could hold or hope for or build his life on. After the party Angel would go home to her boyfriend and her baby and Darwin would go home to an empty bed and an emptier life. Why had he let this invitation make him hope for anything else?

Nothing had changed. And nothing would, because Angel was never going to come her senses. She thought she was doing the right thing for her baby and nothing, no dances or sweet words, were going to convince her to stop doing the right thing for her baby.

There was noise just outside the door and the last thing Darwin wanted to do was deal with other people, so he hid quickly in the handicapped stall. Just in time; the door opened and he heard men's voices.

"-still just as clumsy," one said. The voice was crisp and British.

"We should have gotten some club soda," the other said, low and gravelly. There was the sound of steps, of water running, and Darwin held his breath as he stepped forward slightly, keying up to see through the crack in the door.

"Is that what gets out stains? I thought it was baking soda or something," Charles murmured, watching Erik dab at his sleeve with a handkerchief.

"Maybe that too," Erik allowed, focused on his task, on Charles' thin, pale hand in his.

Darwin could only see Charles' face through the mirror. His shining blue eyes were intent on Erik's concentrating face.

"Who was he?" he asked very softly.

"Who?" Erik muttered back, twisting Charles' wrist very gently, trying to catch sight of something in the light.

"That man who came in. The one you were afraid of."

Erik's body froze in place; the breath seemed to stopper in his chest: he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Sitting back on his heels, he tried to shift away, but Charles grabbed him, kept him close.

"Erik-" Charles demanded.

But the taller man turned his face away, and gently extricated his sleeve from Charles' grip. The brunet seemed to pale even further, and his fingers flew to his temple but Erik stopped him.

Those pale cheeks flushed with anger.

"Erik, you told me-you _promised _me, no more secrets."

"I know," Erik laughed, sounding tortured, and moved his hands to the arms of the wheelchair, squeezing tightly, painfully, holding on. "I know. I can't keep it from you. I don't want to try. I've been trying to think-think of the perfect way to say it, the _right _way to say it...but I don't think it exists."

Erik took a deep breath and Darwin could hear it shuddering in his chest.

"But please-I don't want to ruin your big party. Please. When we get...when we get to the apartment I'll tell you everything. Anything you want to know."

Charles' shoulders relaxed, but his face in the mirror was pained and concerned. He put his hands over Erik's and attempted to smile but it didn't look very comfortable.

"I don't want you ruining my first night home, either. You can tell me tomorrow, maybe."

"Home..." Erik looked up at him then, smiling hopefully, and his eyes didn't look absolutely dry. "You really want to, then? You don't have to. There's Raven...Moira...you could stay at Westchester. We could...you could hire a nurse..."

Charles shook his head and pulled Erik's hand off his chair, holding it in his.

"I want to. I want to try."

Staring at his hand in Charles', Erik's gleaming smile slipped, forcefully replaced by serious level-headedness.

"I made up the spare room. In case...in case you were worried about that. I mean, I won't...I won't pressure you. I know you still need time. I know this doesn't mean you don't need time."

Charles nodded and Erik stood up but Charles still didn't release his hand.

"But I'm not worried. Maybe I didn't believe it at first but...I do believe in you, Erik. I trust you. I want to make this work, if we can. I want to make a real, honest try of it. I do think it deserves that."

Erik's face lit up with excitement for a split second, but in the next it had collapsed, and as he turned Darwin could only see him in the mirror, looking haunted, hunted.

He was silent for a long time, but it must have been obvious to Charles that he was trying to say something because the man didn't interrupt, just watched on, brows furrowed with worry.

"I...I slept with him."

Darwin nearly toppled over he was so shocked, and Charles looked just about the same, eyes wide and blinking. Still, he struggled to speak, fingers spasming faintly on his knee.

"While...while I was gone?" Charles gasped softly.

Erik nodded, head down, and Darwin couldn't see his face anymore, although he could hear what sounded like quiet sniffling.

"And...after," Erik whispered, but Darwin still heard him, and so did Charles as the man's hand quaked up to his mouth, and then his cheek.

"We," Charles said weakly. "We don't have to talk about this right now."

Erik turned to him, but Charles was already turning away, hand on his wheels.

The tall man deflated further, rubbed his eyes dry but red, and followed.

Darwin waited until his heartbeat returned to normal and then followed them out, legs tingling.

"Hey, where were you?" Angel asked immediately, choking into her water.

"I just...stepped out. Where's Trevor?"

"Oh..." Angel blushed deeply, but stepped closer to him, closer than she usually allowed herself without handy pretences. "I told him to fuck off. But that's whatever. You won't believe what I heard!"

"What?" Darwin questioned, confused, and still thrown off by what he'd eavesdropped on.

"Charles took my advice! They're back together! _Living _together! Blew off his sister and his best friend and chose Erik! Isn't that perfect?" Darwin didn't know what to say to that, because their relationship seemed like anything but perfect after what he'd seen, but his voice stoppered in his throat as Angel took his hand in hers, and gazed deeply, joyfully into his eyes. "Some people just belong together. The brain comes up with a million reasons to stay apart but the heart wins in the end. And is that so awful? It makes _everyone _so happy; that _must _mean it's right-right?"

Darwin wanted to agree with her without thinking about it, wanted to hold her back and say yes and not let his mind stray to Charles' face, to the tears in Erik's eyes, to a situation that neither the heart nor the brain could attempt to play a heroic part in. Chance ruled everything. The brain could win and drive two lovers apart and make them both miserable. The heart could drag two combatants together and do the same thing. It was the luck of the draw who ended up happy despite their heart or their brain, and the hard part was to stay in the game when tragedy was just as likely as bliss.

"Right," he grinned, and squeezed her hand back.


	12. -Sean and Alex

Alex sat staring and staring at the board, doing that thing where he rubbed his mouth while he was thinking, till by now they were swollen and red and all Sean wanted to do was throw him on his back, tear his nice suit off, and demolish him. Instead he took another burning gulp of Scotch and choked back on a desire to cough. Scotch was apparently something he was supposed to like as an adult but did not. Just like the wine Erik had poured with dinner. Maybe when he turned twenty-two.

Still, he was glad they'd taken Erik up on the offer to come out to dinner.

He hadn't been too sure about it, at first, and not just because Alex seemed way too excited about it. First there was the matter of really meeting Charles in real life and that was kind of scary-Sean was sure he'd put his foot in his mouth. He didn't do well with subjects that were supposed to be politely avoided, and he was pretty sure a super long coma counted as one of those subjects. Then there was the fact that Erik wanted more of a dinner party than a restaurant date. Charles couldn't eat a lot of foods and then there was the wheelchair and everything so it was just easier to eat in-if that was all right with them, and it was totally alright with Alex, and Sean did approve of the fact that he wouldn't have to pay for a nice dinner. But most of all, he had to admit, there was about the hour-long pot-induced monologue Alex had given about how awesome Erik was. If anything gave him the right to be anxious about this dinner-he was pretty sure that did.

"He even looks good in a T-shirt and jeans," Alex had mumbled after they'd run into Erik at the QFC and started this whole thing off.

"He's pretty good-looking," Sean had muttered back, staring at the colors of light the TV was making on his hair.

"Pretty good looking!" Alex had scoffed, turning over in their bed and pinning Sean to the mattress. "All tan and not a total skeleton like last time-he should be a model. He should be a porn star. People should have to pay good money to see him naked. To see him not naked, to see him at all. He should walk around in a box with a coin slot to look at him. Period."

"I don't think I want to go to dinner any more," Sean had pouted back, but then Alex had laughed and started kissing him and they'd made out and screwed and he'd kind of forgotten that this might turn out to be a bad idea until they were on the doorstep and it was too late.

But Sean took solace in the fact that Erik only had eyes for Charles, and that with the wheelchaired guy around Alex didn't have much chance to fawn too obviously in the glow of his attention. Still, he'd been sure, when they broke from dessert to drink Scotch and play chess like real grown ups, to put Alex on Charles' team rather than Erik's.

He wasn't sure if that had been a good idea though. For one, Charles wasn't hard to look at either. He didn't look anything like he had in the hospital, so that Sean didn't even attempt to think of them as the same person. No, Charles was blue-eyed and freckled and brilliant, slim but no longer pared down to the bone, charming and very hands-on. Like now, as the guy leaned over the arm of his wheelchair and put his hand on Alex's shoulder, drawing him close and whispering lightly in his ear. At least Erik kept his hands to himself, and was too reserved to smile so provocatively. Charles seemed to exude a good-natured flirtatiousness that made Sean want to lean over the push his wheelchair a few feet back from his boyfriend's chair. Alex beamed back at Charles and finally moved a piece, the horse-looking one, taking one of their black pieces, one of the important ones, he was pretty sure.

Erik shifted on the couch, leaning forward over his knees and then all the way back again. He was smiling hugely, so Sean wasn't sure if that meant they were still winning or if Charles had found a way to beat them. Alex had been playing a lot, and practicing, but he still played turn-by-turn. Erik and Charles, on the other hand, seemed to look at a board and see three or four or maybe a million plays ahead. Three moves in they seemed to see how the whole game would be played out. He just hoped they saw his team winning. He wouldn't mind some bragging rights around the apartment, after all, and for him to win even though Alex was the one who'd gotten so into chess lately (even asking for a chess strategy book for Christmas) would be beyond awesome.

Charles grinned at Erik over his steepled fingers, looking very pleased with himself, so Sean guessed that meant he shouldn't count down the minutes until the epic touchdown dance he was going to do when he won. But then in the next second Charles fidgeted like he'd been stung, jolting in his chair, smile draining from his face, and he seemed to bite down on every feeling of contentment that had momentarily caught him off guard, refusing to look at Erik again. And that's when he realized they must be fighting.

Sean had the same problem, so he recognized it easily in other people, despite his unusually high levels of obliviousness. He always wanted to be angrier with someone than he could actually muster, and for longer than he could actually manage. Someone would make him angry and he'd think, "Just for that I'm not talking to you for a week" but by that night he'd usually slipped up already. His cold shoulder was full of kinks were warmth flowed out unwillingly. Apparently Charles had the same problem. He wondered what Erik had done to make him attempt it though.

They'd seemed fine at dinner, mostly. No one had been given the silent treatment, Charles had complimented Erik on his cooking, there were no glowers or glares. He guessed they hadn't touched much, or kissed or stared adoringly into each other's eyes, but he didn't think that was so terrible. It was weird when old people did stuff like that, after all. They should all act like such chaste friends, keeping their hands to themselves, and try not to make young people too queasy.

"Bishop to G7," Erik hissed in his ear, squeezing his shoulder, and Sean stared at the heavy marble pieces trying to remember which one was the bishop. The one that looked like a church hat, that was right. He grabbed it and then counted out where G7 was, but he didn't get a chance to go any farther as Erik put his hand over his and put the piece back down, showing him the _other _bishop he was supposed to move. That's right-there were two he had to pick between. Alex laughed and he stuck his tongue out at him and moved the right piece, wishing the blonde wasn't on the other side of the coffee table so he could kick his shin. Nothing got Alex out of a cocky attitude better than a well-aimed swipe at a prominent bone.

"I'm afraid Erik and I have a distressing amount of practice at this game," Charles pointed out with a reserved smile, picking at his gnawed-on fingernails. What Sean's mother would have to say about those fingernails. She'd threaten to dip them all in tabasco sauce, at the very least. "We've played it every night this week. Our moves are about memorized by now."

"Ugh-chess every single night? Luckily Alex only forces me into about once a week or so."

"I like it," Erik countered, watching the match, planning what Charles was likely to do next. "It's easier to talk over a game of chess."

Charles stiffened in his chair slightly, as if he'd never thought of it that way, and if he had he wouldn't have been duped into it. Oops. Sean guessed this cold shoulder had been cold for longer than tonight, and that Charles would be careful of this chink in the future.

"I like it, too," Alex agreed, smiling at his idol sheepishly, blind to his own partner. "And it's just not same, going play at the park with strangers."

Erik nodded sagely, drinking deeply and not wincing at all. Maybe that meant Sean'd be used to Scotch by time he turned forty.

"Is the word you're looking for 'meaningless'?" Charles drawled, swirling his wine and watching the effects disinterestedly. Erik tensed up beside him on the couch and started fiddling with the seam of his sleek black jeans.

"Yeah, I guess so," Alex laughed back, staring at the chess board and not noticing what the turn in conversation had done to Erik. Sean was a bit at a loss-he wasn't used to Alex being the oblivious one. He had no clue what to do. He felt like he should call a time out and fill him in or something before he really put his foot in it. "I mean, when you play with strangers, there's just nothing there. Just chess. And chess is great-I mean, I really like it-but playing with Sean...even if the chess isn't that great, it's way more fun. We can talk about stuff and hang out and...well..." Alex blushed suddenly and Sean grinned because he knew what else they did when they played chess, mostly at the instigation of whoever was losing so they wouldn't be forced to finish the game.

"But even with a stranger, there's a camaraderie. I don't think you can argue that _anything _with another human being can really be meaningless."

"Well," Alex nodded. "I guess not like totally. But you know...comparatively. If I had a choice, I mean, I'd rather Sean plays with me. You know what I mean?"

Charles sighed sharply and set his cup on the table with a loud click, sitting back in his chair.

"No," he muttered. "But then I haven't had much opportunity to play with strangers. Maybe when I get back on my feet."

"No," Erik growled back, sounding strangled, and it was followed by an awkward silence as Alex sat up and realized something bigger than chess was going on. He gave Sean a look but he couldn't give the man anything-like when his parents were fighting or when he'd tried to read _The Great Gatsby, _he knew _something _was going on, he just didn't know _what_.

"More Scotch?" Erik asked, and took Alex and Sean's glasses to the liquor cabinet without waiting for an answer.

Charles, mouth tight, didn't wait for Alex to ask him about a possible chess move, and simply grumbled, "Knight takes black rook."

Alex stared back at him, and then at Erik, going pale, and Sean knew he had to do something to get things back to the civility of dinner. Alex had been through too many dysfunctional families in foster care to handle family spats. If this awkwardness stretched any longer he was sure Alex would spend the next week obsessing over every passive-aggressive sentence, worrying about Erik, worrying about Charles, worrying about the universe and the likelihood of anyone ever staying together for something approaching forever. Sean loved him and very much wanted them to stay together for as close to forever as it was physically possible to get, and just because Erik and Charles were going through something weird didn't mean he and Alex had to.

"So how's it been getting out of the hospital and everything?" he asked cheerily, since he'd been too afraid to ask earlier. "It must be weird as fuck going from like 2000 to 2013 all at once. Are iPad's just like the coolest things ever?"

It worked, he guessed, and Charles laughed in a sharp, surprised burst and didn't stop for a flattering number of seconds.

"Wow," Alex rolled his eyes, but he was smiling too now. And so was Erik as he came back with some Scotch and sodas for them.

"Honestly, I've been trying not to think about it. If feels as if I'd go crazy if I seriously thought about what twelve years really means. I just sort of take it all in stride and don't dwell on it. Just pick up where I left off and keep putting one foot in front of the other-er, rather. I'm probably going about it all wrong and it'll all hit me at once one day and I'll have some kind of uncouth mental breakdown. It is what it is. I'm already seeing so many doctors I don't think I could possibly fit a psychiatrist into my schedule."

"You're not as busy as all that," Erik laughed, not even bothering to pretend this game was _Alex vs Sean With Counsel_ and simply moving a chess piece himself. Sean didn't mind in the least so long as it got them a win.

"No," Charles sighed. "I'm not. But I might as well be. I just couldn't do it. I've got a doctor for my busted body, a doctor for my busted telepathy-my mind is the one sound thing I've got left and I refuse to admit otherwise."

"But look what progress you've already made with the other doctors. You're already relearning how to walk and using your telepathy, even if it takes serious concentration. And anyway, that's not even what going to a psychiatrist means," Erik pointed out. "It doesn't mean you're broken, just that you're going through a lot of stuff. We...we could go together, if you wanted to."

"I think it'd be fun to see a psychiatrist," Sean admitted, gulping as much Scotch as he could manage to make it go faster. "They're always so sexy."

"What?" Alex choked on his own drink.

"I mean it. Like that movie that came out a while back. Jude Law is the psychiatrist. I'd definitely go see a psychiatrist if he looked like Jude Law."

"You're not going to need a psychiatrist, you're going to need a mortician," Alex growled, cracking his knuckles.

"I'm allowed to like Jude Law!" he yelped back. "He's my celebrity freebie."

"What's that?" Charles laughed.

"Oh come on," Alex gasped. "Everybody's got a celebrity freebie. It's one person you're allowed to cheat on your significant other with. Mine's Brad Pitt. If Brad Pitt ever wants to cheat on his wife with me, I'm allowed to say yes, and Sean's not allowed to be mad at me."

"I wouldn't be mad at you. I'd fucking congratulate you. I'd be so fucking proud of you, and I'd be even prouder if you managed to film it. Although I'd never betray Brad by showing it around, of course."

"Who's yours?" Charles asked Erik, managing to sound more curious than bitter.

Erik just shrugged and shook his head. "I don't know. I can't think of anyone. What about you?"

"I'm so out of the loop, I don't know half the celebrities today."

"That's okay, it can be an old celebrity, we won't judge!"

After a few seconds though, Charles just laughed. "I can't think of anyone either. When you've only ever been with one guy I guess it's hard to picture anyone else that way."

Sean nearly spit his Scotch all over the table.

"_Just one guy?!_" he and Alex screeched in unison.

"Mmmhmm," Charles replied demurely, sipping his wine again.

"We met our first year of college," Erik explained. "And things were kind of different back then. Less open. You could find your share of secret trysts in high school, middle school even I'll grant you, but to have a real, meaningful relationship...maybe we just didn't feel grown up enough for it until college. Free enough, away from family and small-town mentality."

"Times change, though," Charles said stiffly. "When I was young I couldn't imagine doing anything so serious with someone I didn't love. Now it's like the national pass-time. Anyone can have sex with anyone and it's not supposed to mean a thing."

"I don't think so," Alex argued back. "I mean, if you take me and Sean as like representative of our generation-we weren't some meaningless fling. We got together because we were really into each other. It meant something, for sure, because we meant something to each other... Some people work together like that and some people don't, but it's not like some new crazy thing. I don't think we're any worse than the kids in the eighties or nineties."

"Yeah," Sean said. "I mean, the seventies, eighties were way worse than us, right? I mean, bath houses and glory holes, that's got to be the high water mark of meaningless sex."

"There might still be bath houses and glory holes," Charles laughed sharply. "Erik, are there?"

"I wouldn't know!" Erik was quick to gasp. Charles just shrugged and moved a piece on the board.

"Check."

Erik had obviously been expecting this and moved immediately to counter, but Charles put a hand out and stopped his.

"That's enough chess. We're forgetting our guests. Isn't there something we can all play?"

There was, just because Erik had little nephews or nieces and so he kept a few choice games stocked. They let Alex and him choose and he immediately put his vote in for Candyland and there were no objections, which _of course _because what objections could there possibly be to the greatest game on earth?

"I'll be on your team," Erik decided, taking Alex's seat and leaving them the couch.

"Yeah, couple versus couple!"

Charles looked as if he wanted to say something, and after a couple seconds he settled on, "Well, young versus old how about."

The game and the conversation settled down and there were no more cold-shoulder hiccups-Erik and Charles were perfectly comfortable and sensible together, like brothers, or maybe cousins, who were well-used to each other by now. Erik relaxed into but didn't revel in the role, and Charles seemed too distracted to notice it, obviously lost in thought on some other topic, although Sean couldn't figure out what it might be other than something that required a lot of planning and, by the seriousness of his gaze, not a little determination. While he rubbed Alex's back or got his hair finger-combed, Charles and Erik seemed almost careful _not _to touch. If Sean hadn't had the epiphany earlier that they were fighting he would have assumed it was for their benefit to not cutesy Sean and Alex into throwing up. Now he got the feeling they'd have done the same thing if they had company or not and he struggled hard to un-feel it and focus on the goddamned game. He was more than a little relieved when the game was done and it was time to go.

"Really," Charles insisted as they started to get together their shoes and thin jackets. "You have to let me call you a cab."

"Our treat, of course," Erik added, loading their last remaining dishes into the dishwasher.

Sean glanced at his boyfriend, hoping he'd take them up on it, but of course he didn't. He'd known Alex for a couple years and knew a lot about about him, but he didn't pretend to know everything about him so while he knew that Alex never wanted to owe anyone, never wanted to be beholden to them, he wasn't sure why, or why he had to be so _unrelaxing _about it.

"Nah, we've got bus passes and it's just a straight shot out to our place. Sean, what time does the bus leave?"

He leaned back against the counter, sipping the water Erik had gotten him and checked the bus schedule on his phone.

Then he rechecked it.

"Um," he gasped, and Alex was at his side immediately, one shoe still untied.

"What is it?" Erik asked.

Charles just continued straightening up, rubbing his head as if he were starting to get a headache.

"Shit," Alex muttered, looking as well. So it wasn't just him.

"What?"

"Our bus...the last bus left ten minutes ago!"

"That can't be right," Sean squeaked, straining for better control with the glass in his hand wobbled and Alex elbowed him warningly. "I mean, I checked before we came out. And it's Friday! They always run later on Friday! We should have till two AM easy!"

Sean's head started to hurt just thinking about it, right at the base of his skull, and he pushed the phone towards Alex, who simply sighed and shut it off, cracking his neck uncomfortably.

"Well, that's okay," Charles cheered, dropping his hand again. "Erik can drive you home. I'd offer, but my license is a tad expired."

"I can't," Erik countered, sounding a little distressed. "I've had three glasses of Scotch. And the wine at dinner."

"Oh come now," said Charles. "That was a while ago. Surely you're fine by now."

But Erik held his ground.

"No. Not after I've been drinking. I'm sorry."

"That's okay," Alex was quick to assure.

Sean thought they would probably have to take a cab after all, shell out so Alex could feel like a man, but Charles suggested instead, rubbing his sore head again, "Well, I don't know-why don't you two just stay the night? We've already had a great dinner party; we'll just prolong it to include a wonderful breakfast party as well and then Erik can drive you both home in the morning!"

Sean was immediately overwhelmed with what a great idea that was, a feeling that dissolved his immediate response which had been to balk. He was tired and he liked _his_ bed and he wanted to sleep in the next morning, but all that was forgotten in a moment. They'd already had their first grown up dinner party, now they could have their own grown up slumber party as well! And in the morning they'd have mimosas and talk about decorating, or whatever it was you were supposed to do at gay breakfasts. He turned to Alex and saw that his boyfriend was apparently thinking the same thing, smiling eagerly. The blonde offered up only a sheepish and half-hearted, "We wouldn't want to impose..." which, after being swept aside, left only full-on enthusiasm.

"You're sure you wouldn't rather we call you a taxi?" Erik questioned, eying Charles carefully. The brunet only scratched his head and watched on impassively.

"No way-I mean, so long as you guys don't rather that..."

"No, no," Erik assured, waving them down, then cleared his throat. "Well, that just leaves logistics. You two can take my room and I'll set up on the couch."

Charles jumped forward in his chair eagerly, like someone had called his raffle number.

"Don't be silly," he warned. "They'll take my room and I'll settle in with you. That won't be so bad, will it?"

Sean felt as if the floor had suddenly dropped an inch or two-just enough to undo him completely, and he was staring so that his mom would have knocked him in the mouth and told him he looked like a gold fish.

Alex knocked him in the mouth, and then he did the same to Alex because he was staring just as much, mouth open and horrified.

Charles had a room? _And _Erik had a room? They had _separate _rooms?

Sean glanced at his boyfriend. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe they'd tread into something way too complicated for them.

But by the next moment, he was filled with a happy sense of peace. It would be all right. No need to worry. It was just one night, and he could handle one night.

"Well, Erik murmured, tugging at his shirt collar. "If you're sure..."

"Of course I'm sure. Now come on, let's get everyone settled. It's late. Boys, follow me and we'll get you something to sleep in. Erik, won't you put new sheets on my bed for them?"

Erik's room, like the rest of the apartment, was gray and vault-like, ultra modern and chic, like someplace they'd put in a magazine, but a little more lived in. There were books on every flat surface, and lots of pictures, mostly of Charles.

"Holy shit, look how young you guys are!" he gasped, taking a picture off the nearest nightstand. It was Charles in his graduation robes beaming in Erik's arms-his cap had slipped down over his eyes but you could tell it was him by his huge smile and long brown hair.

"Oh," Charles said flatly, not smiling now. He turned back to the dresser, digging for clothes. "Yes Erik has photos like that all about. They used to completely dominate the house. It was like living inside a shrine. I had him take all the rest down but of course his room is his own."

"Did..." Alex tried anxiously, obvious fighting his desire to ask something he shouldn't. He lost. "Did you guys always have your own rooms?"

Charles only said "No," and didn't go into it, and Alex didn't dare press further, so Sean didn't either.

* * *

"They were talking about us," Alex whispered when he came in from brushing his teeth, flipping off the bedroom light and bouncing into bed.

"For real?" he laughed, rolling over on top of his boyfriend and weighing him into the mattress the way he liked. "What'd they say?"

Alex had a thing about staying in other people's houses, a byproduct of being shipped around to so many different foster houses-he was actually surprised that Alex's desire to not owe anyone had won out over his desire to sleep in his own bed, but damn it had seemed like such a good idea at the time...-and he got some kind of comfort from being nearly squished for some reason. His voice came out happy and strained.

"They said we remind them of themselves when they were our age."

"Holy shit; are you serious?" he gasped. "Man, I'd love to look like Erik when I'm forty."

"Judging by your dad, you'll be lucky to look like Betty White when you're forty."

Sean punched him lightly in the ribs and Alex grabbed his hand, biting his shoulder before wiggling free of any sharp bones into a more comfortable twist. That done, they both immediately started to drift, Alex's slow deep breaths puffing up his hair and tickling him but he didn't mind. He'd slept with Alex practically every single night for the last year and half. He'd gotten used to a lot weirder in a year and a half.

He wasn't quite completely asleep when the bed frame shuddered eerily, jolting him awake with half-dream ideas of The Exorcist. He should not have agreed to sleep here. It was haunted here. Ghost demons were in his bed frame.

"Isata earthquake?" Alex mumbled under him, flinching as well.

In the silent pause before Sean worked out how to speak, there was a low, gravelly moan-faint and faraway. They both stiffened, ears straining and rewarded, picking up the squeak of a bedspring, the scrape of furniture moving, a breathless, muffled groan.

"Oh my fucking god," he hissed.

"They're _fucking_!" Alex squeaked back at him, clutching him like they'd heard Bloody Mary rather than two hot guys getting it on.

"Shut up before Charles hears you!"

"He can't hear me. You hear them-he has to concentrate to use his telepathy and I doubt he can concentrate on much with Erik pile-driving him."

"You are so sick."

"Worse than you think. Sean," Alex gasped as something hit the wall in the other room, breath hot on his jaw. "Sean, you've just got to suck me off."

"Are you out of your fucking mind? And let you imagine Lensherr the whole time?"

"Of course not! He's got too many teeth. I'm going to imagine Charles," Alex cackled back softly, blocking Sean's hand before he could strangle his boyfriend.

"Don't you dare!"

"I won't," Alex chuckled, flexing up into his weight in a totally hot and very aggravating way. "Come on. I know you want to. And when are we ever going to get a chance like this again?"

"What if they hear us?" Sean whispered, aghast.

"So? I was always worried I'd enter old age without a foursome under my belt."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," Sean hissed. Alex just laughed, already kissing, biting, his throat. A strangled moan emanated from the other room, and Sean had to close his eyes, struggling not to imagine what was going on in there. It wasn't working and he was already half hard.

"Fuck it," he muttered, and slipped under the covers, dragging down dark silk pajama bottoms.

"Best. Boyfriend. Ever," Alex groaned quietly.

"You better fucking remember it."


	13. Charles

Charles had yet to put on quite enough weight to where he could sit just _anywhere _for any notable length of time, so while he ordered his drink he mentally convinced the young woman in the comfy leather seat that she'd study much better in the quiet of home. Really-he needed it more than she did; he had no idea how long he'd have to wait here for his partner's mistress to show up.

"Why can't you just leave this alone?!" Raven had downright shouted at him over the phone when he'd confessed that, for all the time he'd been given, he still wasn't quite at the point where he could put Erik out of his misery and make a decision-make the decision he wanted. "Why do you have to torture him like this? Why did you have to sleep with him if you didn't mean anything by it?"

Charles had done his best to explain, but it was made difficult by the fact that his explanation sounded paltry even to himself; petty, juvenile. Erik had had a meaningless fling. Charles had never had a meaningless fling. He wanted a meaningless fling-he needed one, not for revenge, although he wasn't so blind as to imagine that that wasn't part of it, but to understand what it was, what it meant. And really, it wasn't like he'd had lots of options. What club was he going to go to to hook up with someone while he was still so sickly, frail, scarred and unsettled. Who was he going to get like this? Erik had really been the only option.

"That's bullshit, Charles," Raven had growled back, and then turned plaintive, emotional, and he realized he'd upset her horribly with this new betrayal. She'd only barely forgiven him for not throwing himself into Erik's arms at first sight. Why had he for a moment imagined she'd be able to look on this objectively? "If you'd heard him. If you'd just heard him on the phone when he told me-how _happy _he was. How absolutely ecstatic-"

He'd cut her off there, not wanting to get into it, because he didn't need her telling him that Erik had been happy. She'd heard him on the phone from three thousand miles away. She hadn't been there, sweaty and sated as Erik was laughing, crying, kissing his face, whispering so they wouldn't wake Alex and Sean, "I love you-I love you." She hadn't been there in the morning, Erik whistling and blasting ABBA, making him tea and smiling like a little child-trusting, happy. She hadn't been there, telepathy following every bout of euphoria, every thrilled thought, every height of ecstasy.

He didn't need her to tell him he'd made Erik happy for once. He didn't need her to tell him how much he'd let the man down again.

Charles hadn't wanted to say anything. What was there to say? "_Yes, last night was lovely, but it doesn't mean I love you any more than it meant you loved Logan. It doesn't mean I want to be with you any more than it meant you wanted to be with Logan." _Erik didn't deserve that kind of brutal honesty. Erik didn't deserve the brutal feelings he was experiencing. Didn't deserve the confusion of what, exactly, he was feeling because he _did _love Erik although he didn't want to and he _did _want to be with him even though he didn't know how to make that happen. He wanted badly, tortuously, to fall back in love with the man, to collapse into it as into a feather bed-but one sharp spike was keeping him pinned where he was, and no matter how much weight he put against it, it just wouldn't give. It seemed self-involved and despicable to try and explain that to a man who had waited for him for twelve years and was now continuing to wait.

Hadn't Erik done everything for him? Hadn't Erik shown him every kindness? Hadn't he shown a saint's patience for his antics, his demands and his snipes and his bad attitude? Why couldn't he just do what Raven told him to-let it go and love Erik the way he had proved he deserved to be loved? _Why _wasn't Erik's own goodness enough to budge that one last spike free, as it had all the rest?

No, he hadn't said any of this to Erik, hadn't let on in the least. When Erik joked with him he'd joked back, when Erik smiled he smiled, when Erik kissed him he kissed him back, when Erik had done more...well, he couldn't pretend that had been a great hardship on him.

Still, Erik was too much a part of him to not notice that something wasn't quite right. Wasn't the way it had been when they'd lived for each other's smile, wasn't the way it should be or the way he wanted it to be.

By the weekend ABBA had been replaced with Billie Holiday all over again, Erik started rereading _De Profundis, _had taken to "accidentally" falling asleep on the couch, and Charles felt worse than ever. Erik didn't chew him out for leading him on, didn't cast him injured glares, didn't reprove him in the least. He took in all in stride, and Charles felt like a little child, acting up, throwing a tantrum, testing a martyr of a parent.

At least some good had come from his crippling guilt. He'd started to actively look for Logan. To search for the answer of his last spike.

Erik had told him every single thing about the man, had let him into his very mind regarding it if that's what it took for Charles to get over it. It had helped, but the fact was Erik just knew too _little _about Logan to give Charles the peace of mind he required. Erik couldn't tell him what Logan's last name was. Or if Logan was his real name or if maybe it was actually just a nickname. He didn't know how old he was or where he'd grown up or what he liked.

"When I couldn't stand it any more," Erik had tried to explain, refusing to let the tears stinging his eyes break free. "I'd call him. He'd come over. I'd get it out of my system and he'd be gone by morning. I didn't want to talk to him."

But Charles did.

He needed this information from the source, needed _some _information, and Erik was apparently incapable of giving it to him. If this is what it took for him to make a decision, if this was the information he was lacking to figure out how to be with Erik again, how to get past this betrayal, then this was what he had to do. Even if he wasn't quite proud enough of it to tell Erik about it. To admit that it wasn't enough that Erik had told him everything he could, had shown him his every intimate memory of it, that his patience and love and goodness wasn't enough to decide with.

Gulping down his cold chai, Charles started to have second thoughts.

God, what was he doing here? What was he hoping to gain? What was he really waiting for, when it came to Erik? What sign was he waiting on to tell him if he was doing the right thing, if he was giving in or letting go? Was it good to let sleeping dogs lie or was it cowardly to let all that hurt go without standing up for himself? Was that spike something to loathe or was it the last of his self-respect, holding on to his past mistreatment out of principle? Oh, how could he believe that? That if he let Erik in too easily the man would have no reason to behave so well, would return to his old ways, would hurt him all over again. Hadn't the man shown how unlikely that was in his own right? What was Logan going to tell him about it?

Only what Erik was like when Charles wasn't around, what kind of man he was, what he was like when he wasn't on his best behavior, not twelve years ago but _today_.

Did he need Logan for that? he questioned suddenly, unsure. Why was he going to trust a complete stranger more than the man he loved, than the man he'd loved since he was eighteen? The man who'd sat with him every day for twelve years, without fail, without falter.

_This is stupid, _he realized, all at once, in such a rush that it made him lightheaded. He was being stupid. He needed to go home. He needed to call Erik and ask him to come pick him up early and forget this whole stupid day, just put his arms around the man and get along as well as he could on his own. Rip himself free from that spike and go on maimed if he had to but to go on. Try to make it work the best he could with the input he had, with the answers Erik could give him, and not worry about any answers that might be just a little bit further outside that scope.

He had his phone out of his pocket and ready to dial when he stopped all at once. A few blocks away, Logan walked into his range.

Slowly, he put his phone back into his pocket and pressed his fingers to his temple.

Immediately, the mind filtered more clearly into view, and Charles' breath stilled in his chest, shocked by the amazement that this plan had actually worked. Like a fisherman with the image on his line, he sent out Logan whenever they left the house and simply waited for a bite.

Eventually, as he was bound to, he got a bite.

_Logan, _that first mind had responded, and Charles had gasped in his car seat, making Erik jump. He'd latched onto that mind. _The man from the apartment upstairs. Keeps tromping in at all hours of the night. What's his fucking job? What brings him storming in at three in the morning and why doesn't he try in the least to be quiet about it? _It had been easy after that, once he'd recovered from his shock, to work out a plan. There was a cafe down the street, the perfect place for a stakeout. When he told Erik he wanted some time out and about on his own the man had initially balked, only giving in when Charles explained he'd just be sitting there, just quietly sipping his drink on his own-it wasn't like he was saying he was going to go out and play football with no one to watch out for him. He wasn't completely daft.

Still, he'd imagined he was going to have to wait around a few times, at least a few days, maybe even weeks, before he ran into the man. He hadn't expected this to all be happening so quickly, for Logan's mind to loom larger and clearer in his own as the man stalked closer, a tiger slowly approaching his hiding spot.

Gasping, beginning to panic slightly, Charles ran through the plan in his mind, gripping his cain painfully. _Go out. Onto the street-correct side of sidewalk. Logan approaches on his path to his apartment, sees Charles, recognizes Charles, stops in his tracks. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee?" Charles would ask, softly, politely, as un-antagonistically as possible. No, not "buy" that was too bourgeois. "Get" that's what he'd say. No, "Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?" Yes...yes, exactly. _

Yet he didn't move. He just sat there quaking, staring out the window, stared as Logan passed silently by, chewing on a thick, dirty cigar and Charles was too surprised to be angry at his missed opportunity.

Logan smoked? How could he smoke? Erik hated smoking. He wouldn't even let Charles smoke clove cigarettes in college and those had smelled so nice. "You can smoke them if you want to," he'd growled petulantly at nineteen. "But I'm not kissing you if you do." How could he kiss Logan, sleep with Logan, who smoked not clove cigarettes but outright _cigars_?

Gulping, pressing his fingertips to his temple again, he forced himself to relax back in his chair, and he followed Logan up to his apartment.

_Fucking asshole, that's what he was. Taking the fucking bus home like an idiot. Say what you wanted about Erik but at the least the man always gave him a tenner for taxi fare. _

Charles gasped, kicked out in surprise. Erik. He said Erik. He _did _think of Erik. He _knew _it. Trembling, he pressed back in, pushing aside Logan's current grumbling about how Whatever-His-Name-Was didn't know how to treat a man, would be lucky if Logan didn't clock him straight in the face if he ever saw him again.

_Erik, _he reminded. _What about Erik?_

_Erik, too, _Logan lunged at the thought like a harassed animal, snarling and biting at anything that approached close enough. The sharp, wild thoughts felt like broken glass grazing his skin, between his skull and his brain. Charles took a breath, grit his teeth, but didn't give up the field, listening still. _He'd punch him too. He'd thrash the lot of them, these assholes he always fell in with. He didn't deserve this shit, that was for damned sure._

Huffing, Charles strained to draw him away from this wrath, to calm him to the point where he could be drawn in any clear direction besides violence. _Erik. What was Erik like? When had he last seen Erik?_

Logan shook him off immediately, bristling under even his gentle drawings, but Charles just growled and came back to it. For all his snapping at the leash, Logan had still followed beautifully, was thinking of Erik, of seeing him at that fucking swank party dressed up to the nines. He'd been too surprised at seeing the boyfriend if that's what he was, sitting there in real life although he was in a wheelchair. Logan had always thought he'd died years ago, when he thought of him at all.

Logan didn't _want _to think of him, and after a rush of anger at him he thought back beyond him, to the last time he'd had a shot, the last time he and Erik were together. "_We can't do this again," _Erik had grumbled, putting his clothes back on even though they'd only done it the one time and usually Erik could be counted on for a full night before he got kicked out.

Charles fell out again out of shock, because Logan wasn't remembering it right. That's not what Erik looked like: the imperious brow, the sneering mouth, the sharp, predatory eyes. Blinking, he rushed back in.

"_It's none of your business why," _Erik was snarling, teeth flashing, eyes blazing. Wrong. Even when Charles had pissed him off beyond belief, that's not what he'd looked like-Erik was always more devilish than animalistic with his snarling.

Logan was still proud that he'd got the last word, tackling Erik to the bed, hissing "I'll see you again. You're not as strong as you like to think. I'll see you again," before Erik threw him off with his powers, tossing him against the wall like a fucking doll.

_Why did he even care? Why did he even want to see Erik again? The man was a bastard. There wasn't a single good thing about him, besides his cock, and even that only barely made him worth it. He was haughty and dismissive, so fucking holier-than-thou, like some king, the emperor of douches._

No, Charles grit-that wasn't right. Erik was probably the least imperious person he knew. He wasn't above antagonizing people into backing down when he could, that was true, but kingly? Holier-than-thou? All Charles could think of was the quiet way Erik made him tea, the way he smiled and got excited about a good chess move, the way he alternately growled and flirted and pleaded with his physical therapists when he thought they were being a bit too rough with him.

_I don't care if I do never see him again. _Logan thought. _Let that gimp boyfriend have him. They fucking deserve each other. If Charlie likes em brutal and tight-lipped and heartless then good fucking luck to him._

Charles pulled back, but on purpose this time, he was too angry to stay there any longer. Brutal? Erik? This was the same man who sat by his bedside for twelve years and read to him and waited for him, patiently and sadly and painfully. What about that was brutal? As for taciturn-just because he didn't want to talk to Logan, just because he didn't want to share with _him_, didn't mean he didn't want to share with someone. And heartless! This man whose heart he was breaking, portrayed as some ice-veined imperial twat without a care for anyone in the world...

Logan didn't know Erik at all if this was what he thought of him. Erik's librarian, the security guard at the condo, the barista at the Starbucks on his way to work, the receptionist at the PT office, knew him better and more fully. Charles would have been better off getting hung up on Erik's relationship with any of them rather than this stranger who remained a stranger despite such heady opportunities for more. It was like a man using _The Count of Monte Cristo _as a coaster, as kindling, as toilet paper. It was at the same time ignoble and pitiful and vicious.

He was struck, painfully, breathlessly, with his own stupidity, with his own mismanagement. God. _God_, the time he'd wasted. The love he'd suspected and mistrusted, and all for this. Only to find this anemic boogeyman at the bottom of. A sickly snake that cast the shadow of a cobra.

He was so angry, at himself for thinking so little of what he had with Erik, and at Logan for thinking so badly of Erik in his own right, that his anger was enough to drive him up and out of his seat, barely remembering to get his cane underneath him in time. He didn't care about excuses now, didn't care about pretences. All it would take was a momentary push of telepathy to get through the door, then he'd be able to shout at Logan to his heart's content, until he understood his own foolishness towards the man, the saint he'd been so harsh with.

He was upset and mindless with it, and it was hard enough walking even with full concentration. Two steps out of the cafe and it happened. All at once one foot didn't come forward the way it was supposed to and his weight was already shifting onto it with no way to shift it back, and he realized he was falling. It was too shocking, too fast, for him to cry out. He had only enough time to throw a hand out and realize with terror that this was going to hurt, a lot.

He closed his eyes and stopped breathing and waited for it. A pained grunt was knocked out of him as something connected with his diaphragm, and he opened his eyes in shock because he knew he had not hit the ground.

"Charles!" someone was shouting, and he stared at his cane, hanging in midair where he was laid across it, trembling by its dual metal ends.

Before he managed to look up, Erik was already pulling him upright, checking him over and dusting him off, hands quaking.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" the man was huffing. "You didn't have to come looking for me. Are you alright? Can you brea-"

He stopped talking, knocked into silence, when Charles was capable of controlling his own limbs again and used that control to grab Erik by the shoulders, clutch him as close as he could get him, feeling Erik's bones beneath his thin sweater.

"Charles," the man gasped anew, pulling at him. "Charles, god, what's wrong? Are you okay? I'll call someone. I'll call Hank. I'm taking you to the hospital."

"No," Charles laughed, or maybe cried, pulling back enough to look Erik in his terrified eyes, proving there was nothing the matter with him, putting his weight back onto his own feet to prove it even further. "I'm fine. Really...I'm fine. I just...I just missed you."

Erik blinked back at him, mouth dropping open slightly, sun catching on his ginger stubble.

"You what?"

* * *

Charles woke up early, but it wasn't his fault-the blinds were just so unbelievably thin in here, and there weren't even any curtains up to block the sun out. He wasn't upset though, he just lay there lazily, blinking slowly in the early morning light, thinking. He thought about the ache in his hips and if maybe he wasn't walking right on them or if this was just something he was going to have to tolerate until little-considered muscles restrengthened themselves. He thought about the book on his nightstand and about how, although he really did want to finish it, he would be most of the morning about it and he had so wanted to get out of the house today. He thought of the man wound round his body like a sweet pea plant, huffing sleepy breaths against his bare shoulder, hair stuck up and gingery in the sunlight, thin mouth turned up in a faint smile even in his sleep. He thought about how young Erik looked when he was happy, how easy it was to remember in him the boy he'd met and fallen in love with like a bolt of lightning, out of the blue and electric.

Smiling, he decided on a whim to do something for the man, any little show of good-grace and affection. He kissed Erik's brow and pushed himself up and out of bed, waking and startling Dantes, to make the man some hot chocolate, just the way he liked it, with real bittersweet chocolate and an indecent heap of cinnamon and nutmeg.

He was immediately dragged back down as Erik tightened the arm around his waist and fenced him in.

"Wha?" the man grumbled.

"I'm getting up," Charles laughed, straining. "Let go of me you groggy git."

But instead Erik wrestled him to the mattress and lay overtop him, skin sticking together where the covers weren't tangled up between them, burying his face in Charles' throat and humming happily.

"No, I don't think I will," he mumbled.

"We're just going to stay in bed all day?" Playing with the man's hair and feeling his breath warm and humid on his collar, he forgot why this was a bad thing.

"Yes please," Erik growled, kissing his neck and reaching under the covers to wrap his arms around Charles' bare waist.

"I've been in a bed for twelve years," he reminded, as if Erik needed reminding. Charles needed more reminding on the fact than he did, more often than not. "Let's go out and do something."

Erik stretched against him, long and limber like an underfed cat, the words coming out groaning but approaching real wakefulness. "Like what?"

"I don't know. You're not going to be off work forever. We've got to take advantage of our time off."

Erik rolled off of him, still staying pressed to his side, and blinked thoughtfully-Charles could feel his eyelashes on his bicep, and the gears turning on the edge of his mind; he pressed in further.

_Winter. Damp, Cold. Sick. Pneumonia._

He frowned, confused, and pressed in even more.

_This was supposed to be his vacation. Surely he should go on an actual vacation. Get out of the city for the winter. Away from the cold, away from the damp. Too much chance of him getting sick. Of getting pneumonia. Charles wouldn't survive another bout of pneumonia._

The bone-chilling terror this thought sparked in Erik was too much for him and he had to pull away, breathing sharply.

"Are you okay?" Erik asked, nervous, fully awake now.

"Fine..." He waited for the usual huffing tirade-stay out of his head, his mind was his own private property, it was not a playground for Charles to bide his time in whenever the mood struck him. It didn't come, as Erik simply nuzzled closer to him. He jumped ahead of it anyway, just in case it was on the way. "I'm sorry about that. About peeking. I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Erik balked. "I like it."

"You what?" Charles squeaked, turning to the man. Erik just gazed, sleepy but happy back at him, those bright gray, blue, green, everything eyes sparkling.

"I like it," Erik smiled at him, and touched his jaw, his cheek, moved on to petting his hair. "I like feeling you there."

"_Can_ you feel it?" Charles asked, surprised. He'd thought he was getting very adept at his telepathy, and it wasn't usual for a good telepath to be sussed out like that.

"It feels warm," Erik explained, closing his eyes and touching the base of his skull. "Like a fish swimming in warm water. I like knowing it's you."

Heart expanding heatedly inside of him, pressing against his ribs, he grinned and turned the man onto his back before sliding atop him and kissing him deeply. He dutifully ignored the dull ache from the bruise that damned cane had left him.

"I'm not going anywhere," he whispered seriously, stroking Erik's stubble. "You know that, don't you? I'm never going to leave you again."

Thin lips pressing together for control, Erik bought himself some time as he watched his own fingers caressing Charles' unruly hair.

"That's not always up to us, Charles," he murmured finally. "I know you wouldn't if you had the choice, not now, I think, but you might not have a choice."

"Well, I survived pneumonia the first time," Charles joked, taking his weight off the man with his elbow propping him up and combing Erik's hair back, thumbing through the smatterings of silver, dignified and strangely, arousingly manly. "And anyway, Hank said himself that my lungs are much stronger these days."

" 'Stronger' does not mean 'impervious'," Erik growled, eyes closing in bliss despite his real frustration. "Come on, we won't have so much time once you're back at school and I'm back at work." Charles didn't respond to that. He still hadn't decided if he _would _go back to school, at least not right away. He still hadn't figured out the point of it yet. He'd been going to school to blaze the path of mutant genetic study and when he woke up the movement was already ten paces ahead of him. Could he even play catchup if he got back in that field? Maybe he should find something he could make more of a mark in now. "And they've got our deposition-we won't be needed at the hearing. Come on, California's great in the winter. No blizzards, no massive down jackets-just sunshine and Disneyland and oranges."

Charles laughed and slid off Erik's bony frame, but not all the way, lying draped halfway across him and nuzzling into his beard.

"Have you ever even been to California, darling?"

"I couldn't go and leave you here alone!" the man balked immediately. Charles pet him into silence and kissed him affectionately on his scratchy cheek.

"I know, lovely." They simply lay there a moment, basking in each other's warmth. Charles mapped Erik's body with his fingertips, running the edge of his thumb over the man's sharp collarbone, the corner of his shoulder, the bulge of his bicep. Erik was finally putting on some weight it seemed, although Charles could still see too many ribs to please him. He thought of seeing Erik's body in California, in shorts and a T-shirt, with nieces and nephews climbing all over him. The thought did nothing for him. For one, it was barely fall now and that's now Erik dressed all the time. For two, the thought of sharing Erik with little kids who weren't good at sharing on their own, was dreadful. It would leave him nothing to do but talk to Raven, or Azazel, whom he still hardly knew.

"I don't want to go to California," he decided aloud, trying to sound determined rather than plaintive.

Erik didn't ask him why not. He just turned closer to him and spoke into his hair. "Well," he sighed. "Where do you want to go?"

Charles thought about it.

"Anywhere?" he asked, eager now. Why not? Erik was just going to panic more the closer it got to winter, to blizzards and dampness. By time the first frost came he'd be tense as a rabbit at the fox, and Charles wouldn't be able to block it all. Just because he himself wasn't afraid of catching pneumonia and dying didn't mean he wanted to spend his winter listening to Erik be afraid of it.

"Anywhere you want," Erik agreed, smiling. He amended it quickly. "Anywhere over sixty degrees on average, with no rampant disease or inter-country strife."

"So not North Korea you're saying."

"Among other places."

"Oh, I don't care about the country," Charles decided, excited. "All I want is a beach."

"A _beach_?" He had to wonder why Erik looked so surprised, so nearly haunted by that, as if he'd seen a white spectre rather than white sand.

"Yes. Someplace tropical, with a little bungalow right on the water. And all we'll do is swim and sun-dry on the sand and make love constantly."

He expected some sort of reaction to that, whether laughing or kissing or just an affectionate glance, but Erik just laid there, blinking at the ceiling and thinking. Frowning with this strange reaction, quietly, so as not to attract notice, he reached out. It was a waste, though, as he jerked hard enough to give the game away completely when he saw.

"What?" Erik questioned, suspicious. Charles blushed and didn't answer and that of course was enough.

Still, Erik just smiled at him and rolled his eyes. "Well, I guess it won't be a surprise now," and he put his hand out to draw something to him, but Charles shut him down immediately.

"_No_!" he shouted, lunging to smother Erik's hand under his weight. He blushed under his own flailing hysteria and smiled weakly as Erik laughed at him. Struggling to explain, he got off Erik's arm and shoved the man's nightstand drawer shut where it had nudged open, carefully not looking at anything in there, even though in his mind he could still see the small blue velvet box. "It was perfect, the way you thought of. Do it that way. I'll act surprised, I promise."

Erik smiled gently, contentedly back at him, and caressed his cheek.

"All right. All right, Charles."

* * *

A/N: Dah dah dahhhh! That's all folks! It's been great fun writing for all of you, and thank you so much for being so kind towards this humble little story. I don't have an epilogue planned for this one, but if there are any loose ends or weird things that have escaped me, please let me know and I'll go back and attempt to fix them. I've already decided to rewrite Darwin's second chapter, so I'll get that up either next week or the week after, but I probably won't change much of the actual information involved unless it's one of those loose ends things that have eluded me. I hope that you enjoyed reading, and I hope that if you did you'll drop me a line and stroke my ego (or you can tell me how much you hated it! that's always an option, too, and everyone's entitled to their own opinion!). See you next time hopefully!


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